


if i say yes, will you beg please, please, please ('cause baby when you beg i'm yours)

by kwritten



Series: supernatural boredom results in like quests and stuff [1]
Category: Revolution (TV), The Iliad - Homer
Genre: Alexander/Hephaestion - Freeform, Alternate Universe - Fae, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Historical, Ancient History, Canon-Typical Violence, Charlie/Bass/Helen of Troy, Charlie/Bass/Historical and Mythological figures, Complete Abuse of Historical and Mythological Figures, Developing Relationship, Fae & Fairies, Gen, Judas/Jesus and Mary/Jesus implied relationships, Pre-Relationship, Slow Burn, War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-23
Updated: 2015-11-15
Packaged: 2018-04-27 17:22:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 48,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5057245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kwritten/pseuds/kwritten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>all the bits and pieces in between (or: in which Charloe cause wars and bloodshed and seduce historical figures because they can't get their shit together and just seduce each other)</p><p> </p>
            </blockquote>





	1. between the three of us a kiss will never be anything but heartbreak

**Author's Note:**

> UPDATE: I've officially changed the tags to "Pre-Relationship" because while Charloe is the crux of this series, this specific segment is not going to *end* with them happily-ever-after.  
> THAT WILL HAPPEN. I PROMISE. But not here. This way lies buildup and slow burning and Charloe having centuries to pretend not to be in love. Yay!
> 
> (it is not necessary to read the other parts of this series in order to understand this story)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“So then tell us, General,” Helen’s face flushed, “why should a man kiss a woman?”_   
>  _Bass twirled the wine in his goblet contemplatively for a moment, before smiling at her, “Would you like me to show you?” Before she could respond, he had rolled off the daybed and was crouched in front of her. His hand came up to her cheek, cupping her face gently, a question in his eyes as he looked down at her. After she nodded slightly, he leaned down and kissed her gently. Charlie, her head still on Helen’s hip, watched them breathlessly and when he pulled away, Bass gave her a look that filled her with confusion, before flicking his eyes back to Helen’s face. “A kiss should only ever be a kiss. Hard, soft, angry, passionate; a kiss should only ever be a kiss. Not a question or an answer or a means to an end.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you follow my tumblr, you will know that this chapter IS THE BANE OF MY EXISTENCE. Troy wasn't even supposed to HAPPEN. I was very determined to do history and NOT mythology for this backstory Charloe, and then Troy happened and it took over 15,000 words to get it right. So. I don't know if the other chapters for this story will be this long (I hope not), but I will update the tags/fandoms as more characters are introduced since each chapter will be a different historical era/story. Helen decided to kick this story off, so without further ado, I give you: Charloe seduce Helen of Troy

  
  
  


Dust coated absolutely everything. Rachel looked around the empty room and exhaled heavily through her nose. If there was one thing she could count on, it was that her daughter was never where she was supposed to be. It was comforting in the way that a wet dog at your side on a rainy day was comforting: the smell was awful, the mess was atrocious, but at least you knew what was happening outside your door without getting up to check. If Charlotte says that she’s in the Royal Villa beneath Wonder Lake, then that is the least likely place she is going to be found. 

Rachel traced a line down a banister, rubbing the dust between her fingers, and tried to think. If _she_ was a reckless princess with too much time on her hands, where would she disappear off to? The Queen inclined her head as a rustle of movement behind her broke her train of thought, “Yes?”

“Mom?” her son’s voice came through the villa hesitantly. “Mom? Are you in there?”

Rachel smiled and sped down the stairs to the front door, swooping up her youngest in a fierce hug. Charlotte may have been everything the Fae sought for in a leader: headstrong, mischievous, dangerous, courageous, intelligent; but in her younger brother was the perfect child for a mother with the weight of the world on her shoulders, fresh, loyal, determined but never stubborn, and loving to a fault. Danny returned her hug, his infectious warmth and humor seeping into her bones just from contact. “What are you doing here? I thought you were in the Northern Mountains assisting with the coronation?” She held him out at arm’s length, reluctant to break contact. 

He laughed, “A little bird told me that you needed Charlie and she was missing again, so I thought I’d come down and lend a hand.”

Rachel smiled at the turn of phrase, that for anyone else would be a metaphor, but for Danny was nothing less than the truth. There was no one else in Fae or the human realm that animals trusted more than the Prince of the Realm, to his ear alone did they send messages and reveal information that many a Lord of the Court would love to have. “Did that little bird also tell you where she was?”

Danny wrinkled his nose and shuffled his feet a little, “I know this is hard to believe, but sometimes I think the birds are more loyal to her than to me.”

Rachel let go of his shoulders and snorted, “You’re right, I don’t believe it.” She stalked out of the villa towards her horse. Charlotte had to be _somewhere_ , it just was a matter of finding the right _where_ and dealing with what happens next. 

“Mom?” Danny’s voice was too low for her to hear over the sound of her boots crunching in the gravel that lead up to the front door of the summer villa. “Mother?!”

Rachel turned, one hand in her steed’s mane, “Danny?”

His face was red with anger, which was so unusual that Rachel nearly reached out to him, but he held up a hand to stop her. He had never before denied anyone near him physical contact, always the most loving and affectionate of her children, always the one figure in Court and in Fae that everyone trusted as a shoulder to lean on. After a moment’s hesitation, he squared his shoulders, and she was reminded how so much of his mind played itself out on his body, it was disarming in its transparency, and said sharply, “They are loyal to her because they know she’s the strongest of us. I’m not going to be King like father, and they know it. They’ve been whispering it in my ears since I was a kid. But Charlie? She’s the one they’ll go to war for. Hers is the name they whisper the most.” He cocked his head, listening to all the things that no one else could hear, looking sideways at her with a faint blush on the tips of his ears, “They can hear _you_ , you know. And … they want you to see something.”

Rachel closed her eyes against the sudden movement, prepared for the sudden feeling of being weightless and flung through space on her son’s whim. 

In his infancy, while Charlie trailed after her father and uncle, learning how to negotiate and how to wield a sword, Danny had disappeared into the secret parts of Fae, taught by the wind and the creatures that no longer trusted the Court, but swore fealty to him. Unlike most Fae, Danny could still access secret magicks, travelling on the wind, intimately aware of every inch of Fae, as much a part of the earth as the roots and trees. Rachel sometimes secretly wondered if he _didn’t_ have roots like the dryads that he loved. If there was a recklessness to Danny, it was in his complete abandon of his heart and the single-mindedness with which he devoted himself to the Fae.

She opened her eyes to the sound of her son chuckling, “Don’t think so loud, mom. You’re only right about ten percent of the time and the rest of it…” he waved his hands, “you spend too much time at Court.”

Rachel narrowed her eyes at her son, “Stop listening to me.”

He shrugged and grinned crookedly. “I’m not, they are,” he pointed to the trees around them. 

Rachel’s hand went instinctively to the knife on her belt and Danny rolled his eyes at her. They were on the south bank of the Winding River, the Shadow Lands at their backs. The border between the Summer Forest and the Shadow Lands had once been a simple river cutting through the valley in the center of Fae, but centuries of war and upheaval had altered the landscape so that the southern bank was now a sheer rock cliff face, nearly a mile tall in some places, from Dragon’s Hoard Lake in the East disappearing into the Emerald Mountains above the Winter Valley in the far west. Rachel shivered as a breeze from the dark woods behind her lapped over her skin. 

“Danny, what---“

“You think, that because you can see my words before I speak them in my movements, that I am transparent, and never stop to think that maybe you only see what I want you to see.” Rachel gaped open-mouthed at her son as he walked over to the edge of the cliff, peering down at the raging river below with a half-smile on his face. “You think because I come into your arms willingly before you ask, that because come to your call before you issue it, that because the trees whisper your secrets in my ear, that I am the child that you can trust.” He turned back to her, his heels hanging off the cliff, causing her heart to leap up into her throat even if she knew that he was in no danger. “You think that I am the child that you understand best, but it’s only because you aren’t looking.” He pointed at something to the right of his position, down below. Rachel eased herself carefully to the side and looked down. 

A few yards below, she could just spot golden hair blowing in the wind. Rachel crouched down and leaned further out. There was Charlie, climbing up the side of the cliff with nothing but a crossbow on her back. In the wind that whipped up to them, Rachel could pick out the faint notes of a song in Charlie’s clear tones. 

Above her, Danny whistled a few of the notes and Rachel watched, terrified, as Charlie leaned out, grasping at the rocks with her fingertips, her arms outstretched so that she could see the edge of the cliff. She smiled brightly and waved to her brother, as if expecting him, as if there was nothing at all odd about her current mode of transportation. 

“I know what you want her to do, and she’s going to say no at first,” he said softly and then hummed, skipping away from the edge of the cliff and spinning on his heels. “Or maybe she’ll say yes. She doesn’t think as loudly as you do.”

“Or,” Rachel said stiffly, “your spies choose not to intrude upon her private thoughts.”

Her son’s eyes darkened, narrowed, “Fae trusts your daughter. I find it more interesting that it doesn’t trust you.” And with that, he was gone. Riding on the wind to a safe distance from his mother and whatever repercussions his words would have held had he stayed. 

Rachel sat down cross-legged as close to the edge of the cliff as she dared. There was tentative peace with the wild Fae that inhabited the Shadow Lands at the moment, but with Miles and Bass both in the human realm, her presence on the border threatened that shaky ceasefire. Rachel twisted a small knife in her hand nervously as she waited.

It didn’t take very long, within the hour, the sun still high overhead, Charlie pulled herself over the edge of the cliff, her bright smile faltering only the smallest, nearly imperceptible fraction, when she saw her mother waiting for her at the top. “Where’s Danny?” she asked cheerfully. 

“I’ve come to ask for your help,” Rachel blurted out awkwardly. 

Charlie chuckled, a low and honest sound, brushing her hands off and sprawling in the grass next to her mother, one arm beneath her head, one leg folded under the other. “Well I didn’t think you came all the way out here for a friendly chat.” A brownie, small and dark, scampered out of the woods behind them, carrying a small purple fruit, placed it next to Charlie’s shoulder, looked up fearfully at Rachel, and then ran back into the shadows. Charlie picked up the fruit and bit into it, a grateful sigh filling the silence space between them. 

“It’s not that I don’t want to talk to you, Charlotte.”

Charlie rolled her eyes, “Just tell me what you want, you shouldn’t be this far south anyway. Danny was stupid to bring you here.”

“I am Queen of the Fae.”

“Yes,” Charlie rolled to a seated position, feet flat on the ground, her elbows slung casually over her knees. “So, your Highness, how can I serve the Court?”

Rachel sighed, “Your fa--- Miles.” She coughed and took a deep breath, “Miles and Bass have gotten themselves involved in a bit of a mess in the human realm and I need you to go…”

“Stop them?” Charlie burst into laughter, “Are you joking?”

“Just try to keep the body count down,” Rachel finished primly.

Charlie took another bite of her fruit and grinned, “You’re joking. This is a prank.”

“It’s…” Rachel grasped for the right word, “Getting a little out of hand from what I understand.”

“From what your spies have told you.”

Rachel didn’t say anything. 

“Why do you care what they do in the human realm? They’re probably just fighting over a woman again. They always come home.”

“They usually take you with them,” Rachel countered. “I’ve come to rely on that fact.” They sat in silence for a moment, both lost to their own thoughts. 

A hesitant rustle came from the undergrowth of the woods to her left and a small alphyn pup came tentatively into view. Rachel held her breath as the small, scaled wolf pup, stumbling over its front claws, long ears drooping in its face, circled widely around the two of them before plopping down behind Charlie’s left hip, its knotted tail sweeping around its small body to dangle off the cliff, Charlie’s body just nearly protecting it from Rachel’s view. 

“Why weren’t you at the villa?” Rachel finally hedged, desperate to break the strange silence that had stretched out between them for so long, unwilling to call attention to the alphyn pup in fear that she would frighten it off or call its mother to them unintentionally. 

Charlie shrugged, “I was there for a while, a few Seasons ago, but… it’s lonely there all alone. Can’t get Danny to settle in one spot for too long and trying to keep up with him is impossible.”

“So then, where have you been?”

“Spent a Winter at the Neville’s farm,” Charlie smiled wolfishly, the alphyn at her side letting out a corresponding whine in its sleep as if it sensed her amusement. At the frustrated expression on her mother’s face, Charlie’s smile grew broader, more forced, “I don’t cast judgements on you for the supreme lack of judgement you make in the men you choose to bring into your bed, so please don’t lecture me on my dalliances.”

Rachel blushed, “Neville has come to Court several times, seeking the King’s blessing on a permanent union between you and his son.”

The alphyn pup woke up and began nuzzling at Charlie’s arm indignantly; she raised her eyebrows at Rachel as she leaned back on one hand and scratched the pup under the ear with the other. “And what did the King say? Should I prepare for my nuptials? Or are you sending me after uncle Miles because you hate the idea?”

Rachel watched warily as the pup nestled its way onto Charlie’s lap, the girl having to drop her knees to the ground to make way for its demands, “The King and I don’t feel that Jason is the right match for you, but if it’s what you want—“

Charlie cut her off with a snort, but didn’t say anything. 

Rachel bristled, “You _are_ old enough to settle down…”

“Oh for…” Charlie set the pup on the ground and pat it on the rear, pushing it towards the woods it came from. “If I have to go rescue uncle Miles and his idiot General just to stop you from talking, I will.” She pushed the pup a little more forcefully, making Rachel wince. “And _stop_ acting like a three pound puppy is going to suddenly turn into a fire-breathing dragon.”

“Full-grown alphyns _do_ breathe fire, Charlotte.”

“You have nothing to fear in the South if you are with Charlie,” Danny said, standing over them in the blink of an eye, an expression of frustration on his face. He sat down cross-legged between them, “Yours is perhaps the most boring conversation that I’ve ever taken the trouble to eavesdrop on, and I once spent three hours listening to a dwarf teach their offspring how to properly sift dirt. You are entirely predictable.”

Charlie smiled, “Ready to take me to uncle Miles?”

Danny cocked his head at her, “She would take you, if you asked. It upsets her that you won’t.”

Charlie raised her hand into the air and a gust of wind swept by, like a cat coming out from hiding to rub against your legs only to disappear once you realized it was there, “I’m sorry darling, it’s just the only time I get to spend any quality time with my disappearing act of a brother.”

Rachel blinked slowly, “So you’ll go?”

“And help uncle Miles in his latest war?” Charlie shrugged. “I have nothing better to do.” She wrinkled her nose a little and glanced at Danny, “It’s weird that they didn’t drag me along with them.”

“Definitely about a woman,” Danny mused, standing up and reaching out his hand for his sister. 

Charlie took it, letting him haul her to her feet, “That hasn’t been an issue since I caught them in a bar brawl down near the River Valley over a mergirl.”

“How did that end?” Rachel inquired, squinting up at them.

Charlie grinned in a way that nearly took Rachel’s breath away, it reminded her so much of Miles, “With the mergirl in my bed and the two of them nursing a hangover with no memory of why they were arguing to begin with.”

Danny tried to hide a giggle behind a sudden burst of coughing, but Rachel just winked up at her daughter, “Try not to bring them home in one piece this time. That skirmish in the Waste nearly drove the King mad with worry.”

Charlie jumped playfully on Danny’s back, “We’ve been in worse situations than _that_ silly little thing.”

“A fact I have deliberately ensured never reaches the King’s ear.”

Charlie gave her mother a two-fingered salute, “Long live the King.”

And then they were gone, the North Wind spiriting them to the human realm in a blink of an eye. In a moment, Danny was standing in front of her again and then, as quickly as he had appeared, they were back in Court. Rachel looked over at her son, who looked like he had just rolled out of bed, pleasantly rested and a little mussed. 

“I’m not entirely certain I know what just happened. And I get the sense that you aren’t willing to explain it to me, either,” she said in a low voice. In the deepest parts of Fae, all lips murmured to her son, but in Court, every ear was a courtier hoping for an edge or a secret to win him favor. 

Danny looked back at her steadily, his body poised and alert, “Why did you send her after Miles?”

“Don’t you know?”

“I want to hear you say it,” there was an underlying dare in her son’s voice, a challenge that could have been playful, under any other circumstances. 

Rachel narrowed her eyes at her son and laced her words with steel, drawing herself to her full height, “You forget yourself.”

Danny just nodded, not intimidated in the least, “The longer you wait to tell her the truth, the more difficult it will be… for everyone.” 

“Charlotte has been pulling Miles out of one warzone or another since she was still in the nursery and ran away to join him for that skirmish against the demon horde. There’s nothing strange about me sending her after him this time,” Rachel tried to control her racing heart under her son’s suspicious gaze, and failed. 

“Mom?” he looked amused and mystified. “How do you manage to live peacefully with so many secrets demanding your attention ever hour of the day?”

Rachel glanced over her shoulder, although they were in a corridor near her private quarters, there could still be ears lurking about. 

“I was talking about Priscilla, mom. Not about Miles,” he paused thoughtfully. “Although you should probably clear the air on _that_ eventually, too.”

“Priscilla?!” Rachel hissed under her breath. “How?”

“The East Wind dropped me in the Between after I teased him a few years back. I go visit her sometimes, seems only fair. She _is_ family.”

Rachel just stared.

“You’re playing a very long and a very dangerous game, mom. I’ll let aunt Priscilla you said hello next time I drop by. And I’ll make sure your horse gets back to Court.”

Rachel grabbed his arm before he could slide into nothing, “Wait! What did she tell you?”

A shadow passed over her son’s eyes, “The truth.” He smiled softly at her, “Which is always the last thing in the world we ever want to hear, and the first thing we ask for, isn’t it?”

In the next moment, Rachel was latching onto air and a breeze was drying the tears as they streamed steadily down her face. Ben appeared at her side a moment later, reaching up to brush the tears away from her eyes with a gentle hand. “Why _did_ you send Charlie after Miles this time?”

It was a legitimate question, she hadn’t been making mischief in Fae, other than unintentionally teasing the aspiring Nevilles with an alliance she didn’t want and would never come, and Miles didn’t need her help. This war would have come and gone regardless of his interference. 

“The girl,” Rachel said slowly, trying to keep her voice steady. “She is important.”

Ben straightened, pulling away from her, “Miles will bring her back. That’s why you sent him in the first place.”

Rachel smiled grimly but said nothing, leaving her husband to watch as she walked, head held high, towards the throne room and her responsibilities. 

 

 

Danny had set her down in a long corridor made of large white pillars before abruptly leaving again. Leaving their mother on the border without an escort for too long wasn’t wise, Charlie didn’t fancy fixing Miles’ mess only to come home to another one so she didn’t mind that Danny didn’t stick around to figure out what was going on with her. Anyway, this wasn’t the first time she had followed Miles blindly into a war they had no business being in. 

It was like crashing a really bloody party, the hosts were never grateful, you ended up bruised rather than laid most of the time, and never got to take home any party favors. 

Charlie looked down the corridor to her left and then to the right, everything was still. She shrugged and started padding softly down to the left, a hand on the knife dangling from her belt, peering into each room as she passed. She reached the end of the corridor without seeing anyone, living or dead, which was either a good sign or a very, very bad one. The corridor led to a small balcony, overlooking a quiet city street. Charlie crept up to the edge and looked around, the city was still, even though the sky was still tinged with the lingering rays of twilight. Very little lights, no movement on the streets from what she could see, a stillness that permeated the air, it pressed down on her. Worry and fear. She could practically taste it in the wind. They had been in difficult spots before, stranded for days without access to water or food or transport, backs against the wall with an army bearing down on them, but Charlie had never felt such oppressive resignation.

“Miles,” she whispered to the streets below. “Where the hell are you?”

“Hello,” a soft voice said behind her. 

Charlie whirled around, her knife held out in instinct. The girl standing alone in the corridor peering at her just smiled, not frightened in the least. Warning bells clanged in Charlie’s mind, the air was thick with fear and upon meeting a strange woman bearing a knife, this girl didn’t flinch; Charlie’s eyes darted down the hallway, suspicious of every shadow. 

“Hello,” the girl said again, a slight tone of amusement coloring the soft tones of her voice. “You don’t have to be afraid.”

Charlie’s eyes flicked to the girl and she tried to force herself to relax. She was a small, thin girl with a pale face, pointed chin, and large gray-green eyes under thin, dark eyebrows peering out from behind long, waving brown hair. When she smiled, as she was doing now, it split her face in two, and it felt impossible not to respond with a smile as well. 

Charlie grinned teasingly at the girl, “Oh sweetie, I’m not the one who is afraid.” She straightened and put her knife back in its sheath, striding quickly over to the girl and dragging her by the elbow away from the open balcony. “Who are you?” She rounded on the girl once they were tucked into a dark nook a few paces away.

“I am Helen,” the girl smiled again, a dimple appearing in one cheek. She leaned close to Charlie and mock-whispered, “Are you a spy?”

Charlie chuckled, “I don’t think so, are you?”

Helen sighed, “Depends on who you ask, I suppose.” She winked at Charlie, bouncing a little after her show of despondency, “Come to my rooms and keep me company? I’m a bit of an outcast.” She wrinkled her nose a bit at the last, making Charlie smile at her. 

“Why not?”

Helen slung her arm through Charlie’s arm and lead her merrily down the hall, “We need to get you changed as well. I’m already a _bit_ on the outs with my husband’s family for… well… the war and all. Not that _that_ is my fault, but to hear them talk about… anyway. Can’t have you tromping around the place in…” her eyes slid up and down Charlie’s skin-tight leggings and short tunic, eyes widening a bit at her bare feet, “whatever you call that.”

“Tell me,” Charlie leaned into her, “aren’t you the least bit curious as to who I am?”

Helen shrugged, “If you are an assassin or a spy, I would have already been swung down to your accomplices and if you are truly this eager to kill my husband, I’m not going to be able to stop you. Not really. Anyway you have something…” She stopped and turned to Charlie, assessing her for a moment, “You remind me a bit of someone I knew once. I feel as though I can trust you.”

Charlie felt a little startled at that, spending the evening in a bath, forced into someone else’s clothes, was not what she had planned for her evening. As Helen tugged her down another long corridor, Charlie whispered to her, “I’m looking for my uncle. His name is Miles, have you heard of him?”

Helen frowned, “Miles? No, I don’t believe so.”

“He is a great warrior,” Charlie pushed. “Perhaps he is with the soldiers?”

“Well they are a long way from here,” Helen looked up at her with a confused expression on her face. “Why would you think he would be here?”

Charlie tried to think, shaking her head slowly, “Perhaps your husband sought his council. He is a great man, yes?”

Helen laughed softly, “A great man?”

“An important man,” Charlie tried again, growing desperate. 

Helen shook her head, “My husband and his brother do not keep me apprised of the men that they take to council. I am kept as far away from them and from the fighting as possible.” She lead Charlie into a large room, littered with daybeds raised off the floor, short tables, and lit with the soft glow of candlelight. “I will see to your bath,” she said gently, setting her down on a daybed and disappearing behind a dark curtain hung between two pillars. 

Charlie wrapped her arms around herself and stood up, pacing the length of the room several times, before spying another balcony half-hidden behind sheer curtains. Charlie ran towards it and looked out. This balcony faced away from the city, revealing that the home was on the furthest outreaches of the city, near a great wall that separated the city from what appeared to be a sprawling beach, behind it a great crashing ocean. Sprinkled all along the beach was a great collection of tents and people. Even from such a great distance, Charlie could discern the sound of bustling bodies, shouts and laughter, lights flickering to and fro. If the city was dead, than the company with its back to the sea, was very much alive. Sensing a movement beside her, Charlie looked over to see Helen standing near her, her small face solemn and still. 

“What…” Charlie started. 

“That is the hoard of men come to wreck war on this city. They have been there,” she gestured to the lights in the distance with her arm, “for nearly nine years.”

Charlie looked back, “That’s… a long time.”

“How long ago did you misplace your uncle, the warrior?” Helen’s voice was hesitant. 

“I only learned that he was missing this morning, from my mother, a few hours,” Charlie admitted. Though it had been quite a few Seasons in Fae since she last saw Miles, and time passed much more quickly in the human realm than it did in Fae. Or, at least, it was counted and measured so differently, by creatures with such different lifespans, that maybe it only seemed that way. Could Miles have been missing for nine years? 

Helen breathed a sigh of relief beside her, “Then you may find him. I will seek an audience with my husband tomorrow and we will ask after your uncle then. In the meantime, please come bathe and entertain me? I am quite lacking in companionship here.”

Charlie held her tongue as Helen chattered around her, fetching lengths of cloth and perfumes for the bath, taking care of Charlie’s long hair with her own hands and rub soft smelling oils into it after it had been rinsed and combed thoroughly. Helen chattered about benign, silly things as Charlie bathed. The impertinence of the priests at the temple, her husband’s favorite meals, how much she missed her proud and dynamic sister, and other trivial anecdotes that revealed very little about the nine year raid or why Helen seemed to fragment her personality between a solemn, graceful woman and a giggling, teasing young girl. She finally decided that after nine years of war, even the most privileged woman would be altered, what kind of life could one lead when surrounded by death for so long?

Helen dressed Charlie in a simple cotton shift for the night. Although Helen was only a fraction shorter than Charlie, she was much thinner, and her clothes fit Charlie in the same manner that her own items from home did, which made Helen laugh under her breath. 

“I did try to make you a bit more presentable and fashionable,” she teased as she lay down next to Charlie on a great bed framed by dark curtains. 

Charlie turned on her side to face Helen, “You have been so kind to me, and I’m about to ruin it all.”

Helen giggled merrily, “You are the only person in several days who has spoken to me willingly for more than a few moments in deference, nothing could ruin this.”

Charlie let a moment pass, but it only stroked Helen’s curiosity. 

“Oh _please_ ask it. I’m dying for someone to just … do what they shouldn’t!” She sat up suddenly, flinging her arms out to the side, “Don’t you ever grow so _tired_ of all the things that you are supposed to do and ought to do that you could just… run screaming naked down the halls and damn them all?” So surprised by her outburst, Helen clamped both of her hands over her mouth and shrieked. “I said that!? I really said that?!”

Charlie laughed, turning back onto her back lazily, “You did. And I do.”

Helen stared down at her, “I feel very much like I could tell you anything and you would _have_ to understand.”

“There is safety in telling your secrets to a stranger,” Charlie offered. 

“No, that’s not it at all…” Helen reached down and twirled a strand of Charlie’s hair around her finger thoughtfully. “Please ask me,” she whispered after a moment. 

Charlie cleared her throat, “I… it just seems… you don’t seem to be very _fond_ of your husband.”

Helen smiled softly, “No, I suppose not.”

Charlie remained silent, waiting. There was something in this story, in this girl, that felt like home, that felt like Fae, something stirring in her blood and calling to her, if only she could understand what it was, she could walk away, find Miles, and get the hell back home. She found herself not wanting that as strongly as she generally did, Helen’s fingers trailing through her hair, the hot air damp on her skin, the soft cloth wrapped around her like a glove, felt… not right and not wrong and just a little bit more peaceful than it ought. 

“He’s just my third one, you see. Technically. Or,” her hands stilled for a moment as she thought, “My second kidnapper and second husband but the third in the lot?” She threw up her hands in disgust, “It’s all so ridiculous when I say it out loud.” She held out one hand to Charlie as she spoke, counting off with her fingers in a delightfully childlike manner, “One, kidnapped at the age of _nine_ by a dashing young man who wants to make me his wife, only to be left in the care of his mother for so long I was rescued! Two, married off to a man of my father’s choosing at thirteen, a decent enough man, for what he was. Our daughter is rather charming, in a quaint sort of way. Unless she’s been irreparably changed in all the years that I’ve been gone. Three, given away to a young man for the sake of an apple and spirited away from my home and yes… alright, I didn’t _hate_ the idea when we were safe and he was saying such delightful things and it was all a fantasy, an escape from a mundane marriage, but...” she dropped her hands into her lap and fiddled with her fingers nervously, “but of course that couldn’t stand and now we’re nine years into a dreadful war and an apathetically pathetic marriage, if there can be such a thing, and there’s nothing really that can be done, is there?”

Helen sunk down to the bed, resting her head on Charlie’s shoulder and curling against her side like a small animal. Charlie wrapped her arms around Helen and held her tight. 

“Your uncle is a warrior?” Helen asked in a very small voice just as Charlie was starting to drift into sleep. 

“Yes,” she murmured. 

“Could… could he make all this stop?”

Charlie struggled to wake up and focus, her mind swimming, “He could try.”

Helen snuggled closer to Charlie, and the two girls fell asleep, both minds busy with war. 

 

In the morning, Helen dressed Charlie in a long blue gown, “It highlights your eyes,” that fit a little snug compared to her own, but once Charlie cut a slit on the side up to her thigh and wrapped her belt with her trusty knife around her waist, actually wasn’t terribly uncomfortable. Helen dressed herself in a simple white gown and put her hair up in a collection of elaborate braids on the top of her head. A practice that Charlie flat out refused, preferring her hair to swing free around her shoulders as always. 

In the light of day, Charlie found herself even more reluctant to renew her search for Miles, content to eat fruit lazily and tease Helen as she agonized over her hair. Near midday, Helen finally stood up, clapped her hands, and announced that though her request to her husband had not been answered, they were going to spring themselves upon him and damn protocol. As they sped through halls and down the stairs, Helen flapped her hands dismissively, “He and his brother, dear thing I quite like his brother, act as though every day is the very first day of this infernal war and not just another dull day in a string of dull days. Really, when death tolls become dull, perhaps it’s best that you pick a new hobby.” She shook her head, ignoring the women giving her appalled looks as they sped by, “Men, honestly.”

Of course, she should have seen it coming, in retrospect. Really, it was all so clear, had she only been paying closer attention. 

Helen came to a set of large iron doors and flung them open, smiling at the guards on either side as she did so, striding deliberately into what Charlie immediately recognized as a war council, four men clustered around a table with a large map spread out on its surface and miniature pieces being moved around like a giant gameboard. 

“Oh my darling husband, I seek a word with you,” Helen trilled, her annoyance at her husband’s inattention barely concealed under a bright smile. A young man with dark eyes and a delicate sort of look about him, glanced up when she entered and stepped around the table to greet her. 

“Helen. You shouldn’t be here,” he took her by the elbow and attempted to steer her back towards the door. 

“Nonsense, Paris.” Helen shrugged out of his grasp, turning back to the table. “I’ve come to ask for a favor.”

A man, slightly older, but with the same dark beauty as Paris, smiled down at Helen, “How can I help you, my sister?”

Paris shifted slightly, clearly annoyed by the interruption.

“This,” Helen gestured to Charlie, “Is my darling friend. She is looking for her uncle. A warrior. Dearest, this is my brother-in-law, Hektor. And a more noble man you will not find in all of Troy.” Behind her, Paris cleared his throat. Helen glanced at him over her shoulder, eyebrows raised disdainfully, “Do you disagree, _husband_?”

Not wishing to cause a marital squabble, Charlie stepped forward quickly, dipping her head in greeting to the man smiling curiously at her. “I’m so … _We’re_ so sorry to interrupt but, it is imperative that I find my uncle and…” 

At that moment two things happened that made Charlie wish they had stayed in Helen’s room for the remainder of the day and forgotten all about the whole reason why she was in this place to begin with. 

The first was that the two other men at the war table turned around when Charlie started speaking, and she found herself looking up at her uncle and his General. Which wasn’t all that surprising, considering. 

The second was that immediately after they turned to face her, Helen tugged on her arm, pointed at Miles, and whispered, “NUMBER ONE!”

Charlie sighed. 

That wasn’t all that surprising, either. 

But she still had the right to be annoyed. 

Charlie looked at Helen, “Are you sure?” Helen nodded silently, still pointing at Miles, who was looking at them with a ridiculous expression on his face. “Miles?!” Charlie exclaimed, frustrated. 

“Oh look,” Bass said, clapping Hektor on the shoulder. “Miles’ niece! Has finally decided to join us!”

Hektor looked from Bass to Charlie to Miles and back to Charlie, a bemused smile on his face, “It is an honor to have you in our home, Princess Charlotte.”

“You’re a princess?” Helen whispered, pinching Charlie’s arm sharply. “Rude. You could have mentioned that.”

“Sorry,” she hissed back, before turning her attention back on Miles. “Forgive me gentlemen, but I would like a _word_ with my uncle alone for a moment.” She looked at Hektor, her expression brooking no argument. He nodded enthusiastically and bowed his way out of the room, tugging Paris along with him. “Please, Helen? I’ll join you in your rooms when I’ve sorted this all out,” Charlie whispered to her friend, rubbing a hand down Helen’s back as she lead her out of the room. Helen muttered something under her breath, but allowed Charlie to steer her out into the hallway. 

Slamming the door shut, Charlie whirled back around and glared at her uncle. 

Bass trotted across the length of the room, humor evident in his eyes, and swept Charlie up into a hug, “You look amazing in that get-up, princess. Don’t let Rachel see, she’ll never let you leave Court again.” 

Charlie cuffed him on the back of the head affectionately, “You’re supposed to be keeping this idiot out of trouble.” She rounded on Miles, “NINE YEARS, Miles? They’ve been at war for _nine years_? Don’t tell me you had nothing to do with it, you kidnapped her when she was an infant, practically.” She paused, looking back at Bass, who was cheerfully helping himself to a platter of food in the corner of the room, “How long have you been here, anyway?”

“Alright, listen,” Miles started, stepping towards her. “This is all… this is ridiculous, but it’s not my fault.”

Charlie raised her eyebrows in disbelief. 

“Your new best friend there, she’s Fae.”

“Fae?”

“Half-Fae,” Bass called out from his corner. 

“The Land Locked are getting a little… out of hand,” Miles said, his hand passing over his face in frustration. 

Charlie nodded, the Land Locked were Fae expelled from Court and the Fae realm centuries ago that had decided to take up residence in the human realm. Several other groups had made homes in other realms, integrating as best they could. The Land Locked could choose to live and die as mortals, and many chose to over the years, but others held onto their Fae lifespans and power, despite being ostracized from society for doing so, and occasionally caused mischief – most likely out of boredom – humans being their only plaything, this tended to mean some cleaning up on behalf of the Court. But Charlie had never known her uncle to pander to the needs of the Court or interfere in the lives of the Land Locked before. 

“But… a child that is half human and half Land Locked will not find Fae on their own, they are safe to live their lives as ordinary mortals,” Charlie protested. 

“Does she seem ordinary to you?” Miles hissed. “Does _any of this_ seem ordinary to you?”

Charlie conceded, perching on the edge of a nearby daybed to collect her… “Wait,” she glared up at her uncle. “You tried to kidnap her when she was a little girl, why?”

“That’s why we’re here, to get her and bring her to Fae,” Miles explained, leaning against the map table and crossing his arms over his chest. 

“So then, why not take her straight there? She was rescued and married and then married again, where were you?”

Miles shot Bass an annoyed look, who jumped up and padded over to them, “Well you see, princess. We … ah… were… _hunting_!”

Charlie rolled her eyes, “You lost a powerful Halfling because you were chasing some girl?”

“Not just any girl,” Bass protested. “And we weren’t chasing, we were _hunting_ and… hey it wasn’t just me! It was Miles that heard about her and suggested we might as well find her while we were here.”

Charlie shook her head, waving her hand in front of Bass’ face, “I don’t care and I don’t want to hear about it. I want to know what you are going to do to fix it?”

Miles and Bass exchanged worried looks. 

Miles crouched down in front of Charlie, “Well, we can’t just take her now. This war will never end if she disappears in the middle of the night.”

“So we win,” Charlie pushed. 

“Not that simple,” Bass said, leaning over the map. “The Land Locked are behind all of it, passing themselves off as Gods and taking special interest in opposing sides and different warriors. It’s a stalemate right now.”

Charlie rubbed her forehead and groaned, “I should have just stayed at home.”

“You didn’t come because you missed us?” Bass asked hopefully. 

“No,” she ground out. “Mom sent me.”

“Rachel?” Miles swore under his breath. “I’m sorry, kid. I thought we had it under control.” 

Charlie stood up, “Clearly you did not.” She sighed and slung her arm around her uncle’s waist in a half-hearted hug, “Now that I’m here, what do I tell Helen?”

“Nothing yet,” Miles said, pressing a kiss into the top of her head. “Just keep her safe.”

At that moment, Hektor peeked his head through the door, “I’m so sorry to interrupt princess, but---“

“No, please,” Charlie gestured to him. “I was just asking my uncle what our next move was.” She moved to the map and looked down at it, brow furrowed. 

Hektor hesitated, so Bass circled around to the other side of the table and started explaining to her the current strategy. Charlie was only half-listening, her attention divided between Bass trying not to ridicule Hektor for how the war had gone up until that point, and pretending not to watch Hektor and Paris circle her curiously. At the end of his ramble, Charlie looked down at the map and then up at Miles. “You’re going in.”

He bowed slightly, “So it would seem.”

“I’m so sorry, your highness…” Hektor started, but Charlie cut him off with a wave of her hand. 

“No. That’s smart. Bass is too hot-headed for something like this,” she ignored his false protest, “and it’s better if you aren’t near Helen, since you remind her of her childhood kidnapper.” Charlie smiled sweetly at Miles, enjoying his look of annoyance, then turned back to the map. “I do wish I could go with you, though. You could use another sword down there.”

“Stay here and protect Helen,” Miles said gruffly. “Bass can lead the troops here, that’s why we keep him alive, and I’ll do that thing that I do.”

Charlie’s vision swam red at the sound of his words. She stood there silently, awkwardly, as her uncle finalized their plans with his General and the Trojan princes, before kissing her softly on the forehead and striding purposefully out the door. 

In the wake of his departure, his General lifted her chin with his hand, and told her with a very determined expression, “Nothing short of a natural disaster could harm Helen if she is in your care. And if we are overrun, I have your back.”

She nodded, “To the end and back.”

“Go,” he jerked his head and released her chin, his thumb gliding down the length of her jaw slowly. 

“I came to be a glorified babysitter,” she whispered sullenly. 

“You came to protect a Halfling girl that is capable of tearing her entire world apart and causing a war that spans nearly a decade.” He smiled at her crookedly, “Think of it as a vacation.”

Charlie started to walk to the door, nodding to Hektor and Paris as she passed, their faces mirror expressions of confusion and bemusement. As she reached her hand out to pull the door open, Bass’ low voice, pitched so that the humans wouldn’t hear, came from behind her.

“She will be Fae soon in enough. Mold her in your image. Give your mother something she won’t expect.”

Charlie shot back over her shoulder, in a clear tone, “You’ll join us for dinner in Helen’s chambers of course, General.”

She only wished she had paused to see the expression on Paris’ face.

 

When she entered Helen’s rooms, Charlie was greeted with a pillow flying through the air straight at her face. Fighting her instincts, she let it smack against her with a smile, picking it up off the floor at her feet and holding it out in front of her two-handed like an ill-made shield. 

“Helen? Where are you?” A squeak came from behind a curtain and Charlie flung it open only to find a small, giggling servant girl. Immediately after, another pillow hit her in the back of the head and Charlie managed to spin around and latch onto Helen’s wrist before she could make her escape. “I’m really sorry,” she said gently, shooing the servant away with her other hand. “Please, can we do battle, _after_ we talk?”

Helen pouted. And it was so damn charming and irritating and _Helen_ that Charlie laughed in spite of herself. 

“One more? I probably deserve it?” she let go of Helen’s hands and dropped her arms to her sides. Helen frowned and bopped Charlie on the nose with her pillow one last time before turning away to slide onto a daybed, curling her legs under her. 

Charlie stood awkwardly where she was, still holding the pillow in her hand. “If it had been a heavier object, you would have to find someone to nurse me back to health,” she teased. 

Helen looked up at her, “You’re a princess.”

“So are you.”

She frowned, “Your uncle _kidnapped_ me! When I was a child.”

Charlie tossed the pillow aside and crossed the room to crouch on the floor in front of Helen, “My uncle does really stupid things.”

Helen sniffed, “Why did he do that?”

“He _thought_ he was protecting you. He did a really bad job of it.”

Helen studied her for a moment, eyes wet with unshed tears, “Who _are_ you?”

Charlie hesitated for an instant, drawing in a deep breath, “My name is Charlotte. I am here to protect you.” She didn’t like saying it that way, it felt wrong, like the words had tumbled out from a script she hadn’t had time to study yet. 

“Princess Charlotte,” Helen said hollowly. 

Something clenched in Charlie’s chest, “Please don’t say it that way. Everyone calls me Charlie. And no one calls me _princess_.” She smiled a little, “Except Bass when he’s trying to get under my skin.” 

“That’s a ridiculous name,” Helen said sharply. 

Charlie chuckled, “Yes well, my uncle is about to go ingratiate himself with a man named Odysseus, so how about we _not_ play that game right now?”

Helen blushed and then shifted to pull her knees up, hugging them to her chest and looking down at her hands to avoid Charlie’s gaze. “Do you ever just feel like everything is _wrong_? I can’t figure out if it is me that is wrong or the world, but this doesn’t _feel_ right…” she whispered it so low Charlie had to lean in closer. Helen looked back up at her, eyes large and wet, “Do you ever feel … like you are the one that is causing so many problems?”

“Only on days when I listen to my mother,” Charlie admitted softly, then shook her head. “There’s _nothing_ wrong with you. I promise.” She paused, considering, then smiled broadly, “Your fighting technique though, is just dreadful.”

Helen chuckled, wiping away a stray tear that slipped out of the corner of her eye, “Princesses don’t fight. They get abducted and rescued and try not to let anyone know that it doesn’t even hurt anymore, it’s just an annoyance.”

Charlie snorted, “I’m a princess and there’s no one in my kingdom that can beat me in combat, except maybe my uncle and the General. Princesses aren’t just a pretty face.”

Helen sniffed, “Who said you were pretty?”

“I could teach you?” Charlie hedged. “To protect yourself. So you won’t need me.”

“Are you already tired of me Charlie?” Helen’s chin wobbled and she looked so damn helpless, those bright eyes, and her long hair falling in waves on each side of her small face, that Charlie felt an overwhelming desire to comfort her, soothe her, prove to her that she was worth standing beside, worth fighting beside. She took Helen’s delicate face in her hands and kissed her softly on the lips. 

“Hasn’t anyone ever told you that wanting and needing are two very different things?” she asked solemnly, her voice husky. 

Helen shook her head slightly, her face still resting gently in Charlie’s hands, “Men want. Women need. That is my world.”

Charlie grinned, “So then let’s change the rules.” She thought very seriously about kissing Helen again, leaning her back against the daybed, tugging at her hair and feeling the smooth press of her skin beneath her fingertips, but instead she stood up and held out her hand. “First lesson?” Helen took her hand and let Charlie pull her to her feet, they stood barely an inch apart, the warmth of Helen’s body a caress in the air. Charlie backed up a pace and reached under her dress to unstrap the sheath wrapped around her thigh and held it up in the air proudly, “A girl is only as sharp as the knife she wields.”

She knelt at Helen’s feet and lifted the end of her skirt, sliding her hands up her long leg, trying to ignore the way her breath hitched, strapping the sheath on Helen’s upper thigh with practiced, steady hands. 

“Hide the weapon that is the most use to you, the one that will save you when your back is to the wall and there’s no prince coming to rescue you, the one that no one will expect,” Charlie explained in an even tone. 

“No one expects a princess to have a knife strapped to her thigh,” Helen breathed.

Charlie sat back on her haunches, letting Helen’s dress swirl back to the ground, “It’s not just about their expectations, it’s about hiding in plain sight. That’s the most valuable asset you have.” 

“And one Charlie-girl’s never had,” Bass said from the entryway. When they looked over at him he bowed and entered purposefully, “Our princess was born with an arrow in her hands. Wearing a dress and a pretty smile is the last thing anyone would expect from her.”

Charlie rose to her feet, “Do you think Miles is right, his plan will work?”

Bass shrugged nonchalantly before reclining on a nearby daybed, “Usually like to keep the political intrigue and back-stabbing to your mom, princess. I don’t like it, but it’s the only plan we have.”

Helen sat primly down in the edge of the daybed, “And what is it that you two _usually_ do? Aside from abducting children?”

Bass smiled at her, “Prefer to be in the thick of battle, myself. Miles has always had an eye for the war table, sitting around making decisions; just put a sword in my hand and point me in a direction. And her,” he pointed at Charlie, who had moved to stand behind Helen, “she…” he faltered, his eyes darkening.

“Is the best of both of you,” Charlie teased, expecting a rebuttal. 

Bass leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, “When she was just about this tall,” he raised his hand to indicate a height somewhere above his knee, “she walked right up to me in Court and kicked me in the shins. Right in the middle of a war delegation with her father.” He chuckled. “They thought that would be the end, should have seen the look on their faces, a treaty put to bed because of a saucy infant.”

Helen turned her head to look up at Charlie, “You were enemies.”

“My uncle and the king have never seen eye-to-eye,” Charlie said dryly. “One day they were in Court, brothers to the last, and the next they were sending troops after each other.”

“Miles had promised Charlie the next time he came by that he’d teach her how to use the bow she stole from his things.”

“And instead, he ignored me, so I went in to give him a piece of my mind and Bass tried to stop me. So I kicked him.”

“And the treaty?” Helen inquired curiously. 

Bass barked out a laugh, “I was in the training yard with Charlie when Miles came tearing out, red in the face and muttering under his breath. We got on our horses and took off, no treaty. Took us a few hours to realize that Charlie had stowed away in my saddlebag.”

Helen gasped and Charlie set a hand on her shoulder with a laugh, “It wouldn’t be the last time I ran off with my uncle. My parents adjusted.” 

“We sent a message to her mom that she was with us and … found somewhere else to be for a while. Brought her back bruised, dirty, and grinning from ear to ear.” He shifted on the daybed, leaning further back on his elbow and stretching his legs out, “She’s the best of us because we’ve been training her since she was a tot.”

A servant bobbed in, bearing a tray of fruit and bread, another behind her with a tray with a large pitcher of wine and three goblets. They waited silently as the servants spread the food out on a low table between them, murmuring their thanks as they left. 

Charlie went around to the table with the wine and poured it out into the goblets, passing them to Bass and Helen silently. Helen looked down at hers and drew in a sharp breath before holding it up, “Well, here’s to … defying expectations.”

Bass saluted with his cup and took a long drink, Charlie raised an eyebrow and took only a small sip, watching Helen turn her wine around and around with her long fingers. 

“You’re here for me, like the others but not like the others,” she whispered and then looked up at Charlie steadily. “And you can’t tell me why and I have to be honest… I don’t care.”

“Let’s just get through this war,” Bass said gently, his voice softening in deference to Helen in a way Charlie had never heard. 

“We’ll figure out the rest later,” Charlie said as she sat down next to Helen, taking one hand in hers and squeezing it gently. 

Because there’s more than this, than the three of them in this room, the taste of wine thick on their tongues, the night thick with the war hovering just out of the corner of their eye, because there’s more than this, but it all felt so far away and unimportant at that moment, and Charlie clung to the feeling, daring time to slow down for the first time in her life, warning the battle to stay as far away as possible, just for a moment. 

Just one moment. 

 

 

Helen was surprisingly easy to train, eager to please and stubborn as hell. When Charlie was ready to throw in the towel, take a break, Helen put her foot down and kept going, teasing Charlie gently or harshly depending on the day. They fought like cats, screaming and scratching at each other’s wounds when they were angry or tired or frustrated, circling back to each other at the end of the day with half-smiles and unspoken, unnecessary apologies shining in their eyes. They fought with steady eyes and smirks on their faces, Helen learning quickly that Charlie was always a beat slower on her left side, Charlie teaching Helen to rely on her flexibility and speed with a few well-timed blows rather than words. Hours would go by with the just the sound of their heavy breathing and the smack of skin against skin, the thump of a body falling onto the pads they placed along the floors, a soft giggle of pleasure and success. 

Helen learned that her arms and legs could do more than move her from room to room and call men to kneel at her feet. Charlie learned that there was something intoxicating about the way Helen could instinctively twist and spiral her body, leaping and jumping across the floor. Muscles started to form on her legs and arms, she had more of an appetite and slept more soundly. 

She was terrible at archery, Bass finally leaving in disgust, throwing his hands over his head and grumbling to himself. She was brilliant with throwing knives, adequate with a short sword made light enough for her to wield. She excelled at evasive maneuvers, at hand-to-hand, at completely disarming Charlie with a wink. 

Time passed quickly, each day filled with a new lesson, with a new game. Charlie grasped for it, struggling to hold on to each moment as if it might be the last. 

For the most part, no one in the household paid much attention to what they were doing. Bass squirreled in the weapons and equipment they needed, whistling cheerfully in the halls, staying as much as he could to supervise and chide, before running off to ensure that Paris didn’t try to undermine Hektor’s command, managing to make it back to them every night, a smirk on his lips and a bottle of wine in his hand. Some nights, he fell asleep on his daybed, an empty bottle beside him, and they left him there, crawling into Helen’s wide bed beside each other, falling asleep to the sound of Bass snoring a few feet away and crickets calling to the stars. 

Occasionally Paris would join them for dinner, or arrive uninvited in the middle of the day, his eyes haunted and his movements stiff. It was possible that when this all started, when they were much younger, he had truly loved Helen; Charlie could see the lingering remnants of it clinging to him as he watched her, a softness to his eyes that said this was a thing that had once held for him so much joy. In Helen’s presence, Paris looked a bit like a lost child, desperately searching for a toy to comfort him in a strange place, and finding only memories of everything he was missing. 

 

They were so wrapped up in each other, so removed from all the things before this moment, so separated from everything outside of their own private space, that it began to feel like the natural order of things. The three of them, tripping over each other, nursing bruises together, sharing jokes and stepping on the punchlines, just _living_ there, together. 

It felt a bit like being home, hidden away in Helen’s rooms with her and Bass, in all the ways that it didn’t. Court had never felt like this, this thick, heavy feeling in her chest warming her even on the coldest nights. Running from one adventure to the next with Miles and Bass hadn’t ever felt this way, this peace that threatened to spill over and swallow her whole. With them, it had always been running, running, running and fighting, blood in their hair and dripping from their swords, eyes full of laughter and adrenaline in equal measure. There had never been a time when they stayed still. Those few nights, with Bass telling stories from their youth and Miles cooking over an open fire, Charlie watching them with awe, never lasted so long, and didn’t hold this haunting, desperate _longing_ that filled her heart here. 

Maybe all this time she had been running away from feeling this way, feeling whole and hungry at the same time, feeling lazy and alert, restful and yet wide awake. It had always been a frantic gamble from place to place, a restlessness, a sense of unease, that drove her on and on. 

She thought her heart would break from being so full and so unsatisfied in the same breath, but instead of picking up her crossbow in the dead of night and slipping out the window, as she had done so many times before, now she tried to remain as still and silent as possible, loathe to give this up, whatever this was. 

 

 

One night, lounging lazily on a pillow on the ground after dinner, Helen looked up at Bass who was reclining on his usual daybed and, with a little laugh, asked, “What is it about men that they think kissing a beautiful woman will somehow solve all their problems?”

Charlie snorted and leaned her head back against Helen’s hip, taking another drink of her wine. 

Bass chuckled, “Men kiss women hoping that it will _cause_ problems more often than not. But in my opinion, that’s the wrong reason to kiss a beautiful woman. If you are just looking for trouble, then you aren’t doing it right.”

“Really?” Helen laughed. 

Bass nodded solemnly, “You should probably already be in trouble.”

“So then tell us, General,” Helen’s face flushed, “why should a man kiss a woman?”

Bass twirled the wine in his goblet contemplatively for a moment, before smiling at her, “Would you like me to show you?” Before she could respond, he had rolled off the daybed and was crouched in front of her. His hand came up to her cheek, cupping her face gently, a question in his eyes as he looked down at her. After she nodded slightly, he leaned down and kissed her gently. Charlie, her head still on Helen’s hip, watched them breathlessly and when he pulled away, Bass gave her a look that filled her with confusion, before flicking his eyes back to Helen’s face. “A kiss should only ever be a kiss.” He stood and turned back to his customary perch. 

Helen began carding her hand through Charlie’s hair softly. “A kiss should be a kiss,” she hummed. 

Bass poured himself another drink and nodded, “Hard, soft, angry, passionate; a kiss should only ever be a kiss. Not a question or an answer or a means to an end.”

“And why, in your estimable opinion, do women kiss women?” Helen asked him, keeping her tone light and playful, as if this was all just a game between old friends. “If you say men kiss women because they are looking for trouble and in consequence, are doing it all wrong, then why do women kiss women?”

Bass didn’t flinch, “Women kiss each other either to prove that they can, or for comfort. Women do most things to comfort other people, when they really should just take what they want.”

Charlie stiffened, “And why _should_ women kiss?”

He smiled, slow and sly, “A kiss should _always_ be just a kiss.” 

Helen yawned and rolled from her side onto her stomach, Charlie’s head plopping onto her stomach as she did so, Helen’s fingers still tangled up in her hair, “I think the poets and philosophers would disagree with you.”

Bass set his goblet down and walked over, looking down at them with an amused expression on his face, “You didn’t ask me the most important question.” He didn’t wait for them to respond, “Women kiss men for revenge.” There was something biting in his tone, something rigid in his stance, that Charlie didn’t want to notice, wanted to close her mind to. He stood there for a moment, looking down at them, sprawled out on the ground, twisted up in each other, and she wondered briefly what he saw. Did he see comfort or trouble or revenge in their faces?

As he turned away, she called out, “And men kiss men out of fear.”

In a tone only she could hear, he responded, “Men kiss out of guilt.”

And somehow that felt like the same thing. 

 

 

They didn’t discuss it that night, or the next. In fact, Charlie had nearly forgotten about their half-drunken conversation on the floor of Helen’s room, though every night she dreamt of Helen’s lips pressed against Bass’ and woke gasping for air. Several days later Charlie was training Helen to use two short daggers – one in each hand – and was explaining how to use them together, not as two separate weapons, but rather to try to think of them as natural extensions of her body. Helen still struggled to think of her body as a weapon, but the less distance she put between herself and her tools, the more effective she would be. Charlie knew this more intimately than most. 

They were concentrating, trying to find a way for Helen’s small hands to rest on the thick handles in a way that was comfortable, when Charlie heard someone behind her clear their throat. 

“Bass, would you – oh?” Charlie turned around and found Hektor standing a few paces away, a sheepish smile on his face, and his hands clasped behind his back. “Hektor?”

Behind her, Helen edged closer, rising on her toes to rest her chin on Charlie’s shoulder, “It has been years since you found yourself so lost you wandered into my chambers, brother.”

Hektor ducked his head and shuffled his feet, “I’m very sorry for intruding, but I thought you might like these.” He held out two, thin daggers with two curved prongs projecting from the handle. The handle was the same width of the blade. Charlie reached for them, wanting to feel their weight, but Helen had already darted ahead of her and had one in each hand. She spun them in circles and laughed. 

“Oh these are delightful!” she crowed, the daggers she had previously been practicing with discarded on the ground behind Charlie, who bent over at the waist and picked them up, twirling them in her hands with the same ease that Helen now played with the others. 

Hektor bowed, “A merchant from the East sold them to me a few years ago, I have no use for them so I thought to show them to the General. He said that princess Charlotte would find them interesting.” He fixed his gaze on her, “The tales the General tells of your conquests in battle sound very much like the legends we hear of the Amazonian women.”

Charlie smiled at him, “The General has told me the stories, but I wouldn’t be so bold as to count myself in their number.” 

“And now you have taken our princess under your wing,” Hektor said with an amused lilt to his voice. 

Helen shrugged, “It amuses me.”

Hektor bowed, “Anything for my lady’s amusement, then.”

After he had gone, Helen said mournfully, “Sometimes I wish I had fallen in love with Hektor. He’s the kind of man…”

“You could kiss just for the sake of kissing?” Charlie asked absently, collecting gear and putting it away in the large trunk on the far side of the room.

“Did you kiss me because I was crying?”

Charlie stilled. 

“It’s … I mean that’s what I thought but I just… Forget I said anything.”

Charlie turned around, playing with her fingers and studiously avoiding Helen’s gaze. “I kissed you because I wanted to kiss you and then you were crying and I thought,” she raised her chin defiantly, “I took advantage because sometimes I’m not a very good person.” She huffed a little laugh, “I’m a terrible person and you were crying and so I kissed you because I _wanted_ to and –“

Helen rushed up to her and then stopped, just outside of arm’s reach, “Are you sorry?”

“No!” Charlie’s eyes went wide with surprise. “No of course---“

And then Helen was _there_ , her lips pressed against hers, her hands on Charlie’s waist. Charlie immediately sunk into the kiss, angling her head to deepen it, bringing her hands up to Helen’s waist, her throat, her fingers tipping her chin up. Helen whimpered and leaned closer, tugging at Charlie helplessly, rubbing against her leg like it was a lifeline. 

Charlie broke away, her hand still securely on wrapped around Helen’s throat. She rubbed her thumb against Helen’s skin softly, “There’s something else I’d like to teach you, if you’ll let me.”

Helen blinked slowly, her eyes a bright emerald green, “Yes.” She paused and laughed, “Yes? I’m sorry, was that a question?”

Charlie kissed her softly and then let her hand glide down the length of Helen’s body, drifting over to her hand to tangle their fingers together in order to lead her down the length of their collection of rooms to end at the bed they had been sharing for months. When Charlie turned around to face Helen, she was shivering slightly, her lips parted. Charlie had half a mind to throw her onto the bed to ravage her, but held back. 

“Yes?” she leaned forward a little, tilting to one side. Helen’s eyes widened and Charlie cocked her head to the other side, wondering if the girl could see the Fae in her, see the wild thing that climbed rock cliffs with her bare hands, see the creature that the wildest monster cowed from, see the bloodthirsty swordsman who had washed blood out of her own hair by the light of the moon more nights than this half-mortal woman had probably seen. Did she see the things in her that she was trying so desperately to hide to keep her at ease; to keep them all safe within these walls, despite the war creeping ever closer to their doorstep? 

Helen sucked in a deep breath, “Please?” She sounded hopeful, innocent, pleading.

This woman who had prompted a decade-long war for running after her passion: _innocent_. Charlie smiled to herself as she lifted her hands to unclasp Helen’s gown from where it hung over one shoulder, if the poets could only see their villainess now. Helen’s gown fell to her ankles in one, seamless movement, leaving her completely bare aside from the leather sheath strapped to her thigh. Charlie looked down and groaned, making to kneel, but was stopped by Helen’s hands, who said nothing, but quirked a crooked smile and leaned over to return the favor, slipping the simple shift off of Charlie’s shoulders. Helen stepped back a fraction and let her eyes travel up and down the length of Charlie’s naked body, a faint blush dusting her cheeks and chest. 

“Not just a pretty face,” she breathed, pulling Charlie close and raising up on her toes to kiss her soundly, taking Charlie’s breath away. Charlie wrapped her arms around Helen and gripped her tight as she spun them around, never breaking the kiss, laying Helen back on the bed. Helen’s hands fluttered around Charlie’s shoulders and hips, restless and seeking something she wasn’t sure she was allowed. 

Charlie tore her lips away from Helen’s greedy ones, causing the other woman to moan in protest, dragging her teeth gently down the side of her neck, her fingers skimming soft trails on every inch of skin she could reach. As she kissed her way down towards Helen’s breasts, something like a survival instinct started clanging in her head, warning her to be careful and, as if this were any other battle she had ever been in, Charlie ignored it, seeking one perfect, pink nipple with wild abandon. Helen arched her back, her fingers clawing at Charlie’s scalp, and there was something in it all that felt a little bit like the mortal stories of heaven, felt a little bit like the sharp metallic sting of hell. 

As Charlie made her slow, teasing journey down the length of her body, Helen’s little pants and low keening moans filled the air. She was opening up, letting go of everything that had been her Self before this moment, allowing her body to feel every single touch with an electric sensitivity. Charlie bit her inner thigh playfully, teasingly, and Helen lifted her head to beg, to plead, to demand, to order, when her eyes caught the gaze of Bass, standing silent in a shadowy corner, his bright blue eyes boring into hers. 

Helen breathed heavily, suddenly aware for the first time the image that she made, a fucking portrait with her legs spread and her chest heaving, a golden blonde head licking at her wet cunt, the scent of their arousal heavy in the air, her own moans filling the cracks in the molding and keeping them in place, seeking and yearning for more and more and more, her hair loose and wild around her, framing her face. Charlie, standing with her feet flat on the ground, her long torso spread out on the bed, her fingers and mouth composing a song for Helen to sing. She was a wanton, needy, desperate thing and she’d never been so happy in her entire life. They were a picture, a poem, a carved statue of marble, their long, lean lines, their long wild hair, their desperate eyes; and for the first time in her life, she felt in control of the picture she painted with her limbs, because it was for her and her lover alone. 

She raised her chin proudly, meeting the interloper’s gaze straight on, not surprised to see him there, but rather… surprised to see him standing so silent, so still. Just watching, just waiting. 

As if he hadn’t been a part of them all along. 

Charlie’s tongue flicked out, teasing Helen’s clit just as she slipped a finger inside of her. Helen fought to keep her eyes open, to hold Bass’ gaze, to keep this one, silent moment of clarity before it blew away on the wind, teasing her with a sense of deeper understanding before disappearing. Signaling defeat was inevitable and she shot Bass what she hoped he understood was a look of apology before dropping her head back on the bed, her back arching in pleasure, her hands seeking Charlie’s head and hair, seeking something to hold onto as the world around her crumbled into something unrecognizable.

As her head hit the bed, Bass gasped out, “Charlie!” in such a way that made Helen feel as though her heart was breaking, but she was too distracted by Charlie’s fingers and tongue and lips and _Charlie_ to put her finger on it. The whole world was Charlie, her body sang it, and Bass’ voice coming from the shadows only solidified it. 

Under lowered eyelids, Helen watched Bass walk hesitantly up to them, his hand grazing Charlie’s bare back reverently. After a moment of hesitation, his eyes on Helen’s face, he leaned over to kiss Charlie on the shoulder, whispering, “Please Charlie?” Helen’s heart leapt at the sound. _Please, please, please,_ she echoed, never sure if she spoke the words aloud or not. 

Perhaps this is what it was like to be a Queen, to have the world spread at your feet, begging _please, please, please_ with bated breath. Perhaps this is what it was like to be a Conqueror, to have your every desire reaching towards you, begging _please, please, please_. Perhaps this was Helen’s first sign in her life that she didn’t want to be a Queen or a Conqueror, she was content to lay back, bend her knees, and beg _please, please, please_.

Bass disappeared behind Charlie’s back for a moment, reappearing with a determined expression on his face, a sadness to his eyes that the grim lines of his mouth sought to hide. Charlie gasped against Helen’s skin when he entered her, one hand gripping the flesh of Helen’s thigh above the line of her sheath. She would have bruises in the morning, five little fingerprints marking her skin. Helen thrilled at the thought. She watched Bass gently move against Charlie’s body, every muscle tense and controlled. He met her gaze stroke for stroke. 

They had everything they wanted and nothing they wanted and it was as clear as the crystal blue of his eyes. 

Charlie raised her head, gripping the back of Bass’ neck and pulling him close to her, favoring him with a wet kiss that Helen knew with a jealous sense of sadness tasted of her. As Charlie made to bend back down, bury herself between Helen’s thighs again, Bass held her up, one hand on the front of her left thigh and the other gliding up the smooth planes of her stomach. “Ride me?” he whispered in her ear, his voice gruff, his eyes on Helen. Charlie nodded soundlessly and he flipped her smoothly onto her back on the bed, nudging Helen as he crawled up between them, laying down on his back with a sigh. 

Charlie grabbed Helen’s hand and pulled her up to sitting. “Lesson number two,” she said teasingly, guiding Helen’s thighs on either side of Bass’ shoulders as she slipped down to straddle his hips. Helen gasped and reached out to hold onto Charlie’s shoulders when Bass began licking his way up her inner thigh. Charlie settled down on top of Bass, his cock sliding up inside her like he was made to be swallowed up by her, made to be eaten alive by her life and her golden body and her desire. As she rocked back and forth slowly, Charlie’s hands trailed over Helen’s chest, her lips sought her lips, her neck, her nipples, her fingers. Below them, Bass reached up and eased Helen closer to him, closer to his tongue, to his lips, and she felt something inside of her shatter, Bass’ tongue teasing her cunt, Charlie’s lips upon her lips. Time slipped and crashed around them, like the waves of the ocean she swam in as a child. She felt buffeted by her own body, betrayed and bruised by her own senses and needs. 

When she came, shaking and shivering, Charlie held her between her hands, smiling over at her as if to say, “A kiss should always be just a kiss.” Panting and exhausted, Helen rolled off Bass and delighted when he sat up immediately, springing up to kiss Charlie, wrap his arms around her to pull her close, their bodies flush against each other, both golden and bright in the light of the setting sun. Helen sat up on her knees and moved to press her chest against Bass’ back, kissing him softly on the thick muscle where his neck met his shoulder. Charlie sighed and reached her hand to grab the back of her neck, pulling her face up next to Bass’, kissing her deeply, a moan in her throat breaking against Helen’s lips. Bass buried his face in Charlie’s neck and shuddered with what, Helen couldn’t tell. 

She leaned back to catch Charlie’s gaze, to share something, to communicate something, she wasn’t sure, but in Charlie’s eyes there was only an unspoken, desperate flame that Helen feared would burn her if she could understand it. Helen slipped one hand around Bass, trailing down his chest until she found the place where they were one, and then with one delicate, hesitant finger, Helen rubbed Charlie’s clit. 

“Oh, yes,” Charlie gasped, pulling frantically on Helen’s hair with one hand, the other tangled up in Bass’ hair, throwing her head back with sheer, unadulterated bliss. Her eyes blazed bright as she pulled them closer to her, sinking her teeth into Helen’s bottom lip. She came with a gasp with Bass inside of her and Helen’s hand between them, her lips on Helen’s lips, Bass’ breath hot on her neck, the word _yes_ lingering in the air around them where there had only been _please, please, please_ before. 

They fell asleep wrapped around each other, a heap of limbs and broken hearts bleeding all over Helen’s clean white linens. 

As she drifted off, Helen caught Bass looking down at Charlie with a look of utter wonderment and fear on his unguarded face. And that is when she realized that there were a million reasons to kiss someone. Sometimes, the person that you love can’t stop their heart from beating for someone else, and so you kiss _them_ to be closer to the thing that you want. Sometimes, someone else loves the person you love just as much as you, and so you kiss them because there’s no one in the world who will ever understand you heart more. She reached out and stroked the side of Bass’ cheek with one finger, softly, heart breaking with the knowledge of something she never wanted to understand, as Charlie slept peacefully between them, sated and unbroken, despite how much they pleaded that she break with them. 

To be a Queen, to be a Conqueror, Helen learned that night, was to say _yes_ in the face of a thousand dreams shouting _please, please, please_. And Helen, despite what the poets will later claim, was always the child staring up at the giants, pleading to be taken. 

 

 

Helen woke to sunlight spilling over the bed and blinked quickly, trying to get her bearings. She sat up too quickly and pressed her palm to her forehead at the sudden rush of dizziness, closing her eyes to the bright light. She felt wrung out, exhausted and loose, her limbs noodles with no sense of responsibility. She opened her eyes slowly and looked down at the bed, which was missing a … she looked up and found Paris standing at the foot of the bed, a grim expression on his face. 

Helen willed herself not to cover her naked chest with embarrassment; he was her husband – even if he hadn’t willingly visited her bed in years. Beside her, Charlie groaned and raised the thin blanket up over her head, protesting against… probably everything, actually. Bass was conspicuously absent, and from the red-rimmed look on her husband’s face, that was probably for the best. Helen rubbed her face with one hand and slid her legs up to pull her knees to her chest, “Husband? It something wrong?” 

Paris’ gaze flicked to Charlie’s legs and back to Helen’s face, “I have some … bad news.”

Helen stiffened, “Paris? What is it?”

“Hektor…” his voice cracked and Helen moved to comfort him, but he held up her hand to keep her at bay. “Hektor fell in battle late last night.”

“Who?!” Helen’s voice took an unnaturally sharp edge. Beside her, Charlie sat up and put an arm around her shoulders, but Helen didn’t dare look at her friend. “Who would _dare_?” she hissed at her husband.

“Achilles,” Paris whispered. “I wanted to be the one to tell you myself, I know that you and my brother have always been… close.”

Helen recoiled, “We _never_ \--“

“I know,” Paris smiled softly. “That almost makes it worse, doesn’t it? You probably didn’t even _want_ to. He earned your respect and your loyalty without ever taking you to bed.”

“Perhaps if more men showed women the same respect they gave each other, we would be more inclined to give them our loyalty for the sake of friendship,” Charlie growled in warning. 

Paris took a step back, “Just so. My brother was always the best of us and now…”

“There’s more…” Helen choked. “There’s more.”

Paris shook his head, his shoulders curling in on himself, retreating further away from his wife. 

“There’s more,” Bass’ strong voice came from the entryway. He strode in confidently, every inch a General, inclining his head to Paris in deference before stepping over to the side of the bed and putting his hand on Helen’s bare shoulder, “Achilles refuses to return his body. He is…”

“Don’t,” Charlie put her hand over Bass’ in warning. “If Achilles is mistreating Hektor’s body, Helen does not need to hear the details, and I _certainly_ don’t want to be told them.”

Bass smiled, “Would you avenge him, princess?”

Charlie settled her cheek on Helen’s other shoulder and hummed. 

“What can we do?” Helen asked. 

“Wait,” Paris answered hesitantly. “All we can do is wait.” His eyes skimmed over the tableau that the three of them painted and he backed up another step, “I will leave you to your mourning, wife.” He bowed stiffly to Helen and made his way to the door. 

“Paris!” Helen called after him. He turned and looked at her expectantly, “I’m so, so terribly sorry.”

And she was. For everything. For the whole mess they had found themselves in, lovesick fools taken over by a passion that burned too hot too fast and dissipated with the dawn. 

Paris nodded and retreated without a word. 

“Everyone is waiting together in the throne room with the King,” Bass said softly. “You don’t have to join—“

“I’m going,” Helen said stubbornly. Charlie raised her head and looked at Bass without adding anything. 

“I thought so. And I’m very sorry, Helen, but I need to borrow Charlie for a few hours today to discuss—“

“Yes, yes,” Helen said with a wave of her hand. “Go be Generals and win this damn war.”

“I’ll stay with you until you are settled with the others,” Charlie said in a low tone. 

“And we’ll be nearby all the time, if you need us,” Bass added. 

_All the time_ , she longed to say. _All the time, I need you all the time_. Instead, she nodded in a manner she hoped was brave, because she felt like sinking back into the bed and crying until her body ran out of water. 

Bass considered them for a moment and then leaned over to kiss first Helen and then Charlie on the tops of their heads, “I’ll leave you to get dressed and see you downstairs. Please eat something?” 

And so began the longest and strangest nine days of Helen’s life. 

Charlie and Bass ran in and out of secret meetings, dark looks on their faces and a barely-restrained violence lurking in their prowling movements. They seemed to grow wilder by the day, as if they had finally decided to relinquish their tenuous grasp on what was probably a façade of acculturation. At night, while Helen slept curled up on Bass’ chest like a child, they whispered contingency plan one after the other and vainly attempted to relieve the other’s fear over the silent and seemingly missing Miles. One morning, while sipping spiced wine heated over the fire, Charlie admitted that she was seeing red, but didn’t explain if it was over the death of Hektor or because Miles had remained silent during the whole debacle. 

Meanwhile, Helen haunted the halls of the house, small throwing knives hidden in her elaborate braids and her trusty knife strapped to her thigh, avoiding the mourners and avoiding the stifling stillness of her empty rooms. 

Outside the city walls, Achilles rode his chariot around and around, dragging the battered body of Hektor after it, and the entire city waited anxiously for something, anything, anyone to tell them what was going to happen next. 

On the ninth day, Helen woke to an empty, cold bed and rushed downstairs to find out what was happening. Surely they wouldn’t just _leave_ her, would they? Not seeing Charlie or Bass in any of the rooms that she passed, Helen flung open the doors to the war council and found herself face to face with Hektor’s body lying prone on a table. She stifled a shriek with her hand and started to sink to her knees just as strong arms pulled her upright and turned her into a broad chest, a hand covering her face to shield her from the sight. Helen breathed in the earthy scent of Bass and willed herself to stop shaking, she sensed that the room was full of people murmuring, people that shouldn’t see _Helen of Troy_ fall to pieces. She straightened her spine and nodded slightly to Bass before slipping out of his arms and turning back to the room. 

A half-dozen wide-eyed men looked back at her. 

“I’m so sorry gentlemen, I just wasn’t expecting…” she waved helplessly at Hektor’s body and choked back a sob. In the crowd, she caught Miles’ eye, who shook his head slightly at her. Charlie stood resolutely on one side of her, Bass on the other, and she felt stronger. “How…?”

Paris stepped forward, “Achilles agreed to return Hektor’s body to us so that we can bestow his funeral rights.” He gestured vaguely to a stocky, light-haired man with a strong jaw standing close to Miles, who bowed mockingly at her, a joke dancing in his eyes. 

“We are negotiating a temporary reprieve from fighting so that Troy can mourn it’s prince in peace,” Bass explained to her.

“That is very kind of you,” she said magnanimously, because it was expected of her, it was the prudent thing to say. “Hektor was beloved by this city and his family.”

The men shifted and whispered to each other. 

Achilles smiled at her, “If it pleases Helen, then of course it shall be done.” Helen felt something cold drift up and down her spine and she stepped closer to Charlie. 

Miles clapped his hands together and rubbed them, “That’s settled then, we’ll give you time for your preparations and sorry again for the …” he coughed nervously and then shrugged, “Well anyway, we should be going.” 

Charlie and Bass stepped aside for Miles and Achilles to walk by, pulling Helen back with them, who stumbled over her feet. Achilles smirked at her and Miles rolled his eyes at the three of them, frustration clear on his face the minute Achilles turned his back. When he came upon them, Achilles turned to Helen and peered down at her. 

“It is such an honor to be in the presence of the most beautiful woman in the world,” he said. He was mocking her, openly and without fear. Helen found that she couldn’t blame him, if there was anyone that knew how ridiculous this war was, how wasteful, it was her. It was refreshing to have someone be honest. 

She stepped towards him, feeling Charlie and Bass tense when she did so, and held out his hand, “I really wish people would stop saying that. Makes it impossible to live up to my own reputation.”

Achilles took her hand and pressed a chaste kiss into soft space between her first and second knuckles. “I also have that problem,” he confessed, eyes dancing. 

“I have no doubt,” she teased back. 

Miles and another counselor Helen didn’t recognize, turned Achilles away from her and she let her mind skip over whatever it was that they were saying. Still close to his side, Helen unclasped a bracelet from her wrist and let it clatter to the floor, as she crouched to pick it up, she lifted her hand to her braids and slipped one of her needle-thin knives out into her palm. Behind her, she heard Charlie hiss, but before anyone could stop her, Helen sunk her knife into the soft flesh of Achilles’ heel. 

He cried out in pain and outrage, buckling over and then rearing back, and Helen found herself being yanked back by Charlie and Bass, clearing her free just as Paris raised his sword and plunged it into Achilles’ stomach. Helen felt a spray of blood hit her face the sensation filled her with a deep satisfaction. 

She had no time to gloat, to marvel at her husband’s sudden transformation, or watch as the life spilled from Achilles body, because in an instant, Miles flew into action. 

He grabbed a knife that Bass held out to him, cut a long jagged edge out of one thigh and then stabbed himself in the shoulder, explaining to Paris, “If I go back uninjured with a dead Achilles, they’ll never believe that I was behind it.” Whirling around, he caught sight of Charlie and Bass, still flanking Helen out of habit, and came over to them. “I don’t have time to explain and you don’t have time to ask questions, so here it is kids. When the giant, wooden horse comes, pack your bags and sneak out. I’ll meet you at the back wall in the furthest corner to the east an hour before sundown. And,” he looked down at Helen and took her chin in his hand roughly, “try not to kill anyone else, okay?” She nodded at him slowly, but he was already gone. 

Helen blinked up at Charlie, “Did he just say _wooden horse_?”

 

Charlie half-carried, half-dragged Helen back into her rooms and into a bath while Bass tried to settle everyone in the council down. Somehow, he managed to calm Paris down, and convince them all that they should go ahead with Hektor’s funeral arrangements. By the time he returned, Charlie was braiding Helen’s damp hair, and he plopped himself down at her feet, burying his head in her lap with a groan. It took his constant attention to keep the city focused on Hektor’s funeral rather than on a swift strike now that Achilles was dead. They argued that morale would be low with the defeat of their enemies’ most celebrated warrior and an attack now could turn the tide. Bass kept them calm and happy and Charlie kept Helen out of sight. 

Within the span of those nine days, the story that circulated widely regarding Achilles’ death had taken on a mythic tone, everyone who had the chance to claiming that Paris had stabbed Achilles in the heel and the warrior had died on the spot. No mention of Helen’s duplicity or foresight found its way into the gossip that spread through the streets and Helen herself couldn’t decide if that was for the best or an annoyance. 

Charlie teased her about it when she pouted, but otherwise pushed Helen’s training all the harder. None of them were very sure what Miles had meant by ‘wooden horse’ but it seemed imminent and that made Charlie nervous and Bass distant and Helen… feeling more and more confused by the hour. 

At night, with Charlie curled around her back and Bass’ chest under her cheek, she sometimes wished she could wake up and it would be the morning before everything started to spiral out of control, before Hektor died, before Paris killed his brother’s murderer, before this frantic restlessness started to invade their every waking moment. And then she remembered that life had never been anything but one messy nightmare after another. At least now she felt like she was truly awake. 

In the strangely silent, restless weeks after Hektor’s death, the war slipped from its ninth year into its tenth and over the wall, the Greeks prepared for the end. 

 

 

Charlie had Helen in a headlock and was trying to explain to her how to extricate herself safely while also injuring her attacker, when Bass came running into the room, eyes wide and a frantic energy about him. 

“There you are,” he barked. The girls rolled their eyes at him, they hadn’t stepped foot outside of Helen’s rooms in over two months. “Come on, you have to see this,” he said eagerly, grabbing their arms and dragging them on his heels. They tripped after him, noticing that the entire household seemed to be moving in the same direction, peering out the windows facing the street. 

Bass shouldered his way through a herd of servants on the balcony where Charlie and Helen had first met and threw them in front of him. 

Helen collapsed into giggles, holding onto Charlie for support. 

A giant wooden horse was being dragged by a hundred men down the street, the entire city acting as though it was a festival. 

Charlie rounded on a servant girl waving over the railing, “What’s happening?”

The girl blushed, “The Greeks have gone home! They left this horse as an offering to the goddess and just left! Isn’t it wonderful?” She giggled and then turned back to the celebration. 

Charlie turned back to Bass and Helen, a bright smile on her face, “Well I’ll be damned.”

They rushed back to Helen’s rooms and gathered up the small parcels they had packed and stashed away weeks before. Charlie and Bass took extra care in stashing weapons all over their body. Helen laughed at them. 

“Why are you acting like we’re about to march into the middle of a warzone?” she teased. 

Bass swore under his breath and walked out of the room and Charlie looked up at her with sad eyes. “It’s a trick, you know that, right? The Greeks wouldn’t have just left.”

“How? Their camps are gone, the ships are gone. Where are all the soldiers?” 

Their eyes met across the room, the answer coming to them both at the same time. Bass found them staring at each other when he came back in, Charlie’s crossbow under one arm. 

“What? What is it now?” he demanded. 

“The horse,” Charlie whispered. “It’s full of soldiers.”

“We have to warn them,” Helen cried out. “They’ll kill everyone! Everyone!”

Bass gathered her up in his arms gently, “Not… everyone.”

“Bass!” Charlie chided. 

“I’m not going to lie to her, Charlotte,” Bass rejoined angrily. 

“This is all my fault,” Helen whispered. “Mine. All of these people. All the men. All these years. Hektor?” Her voice broke and she began beating Bass’ chest with her fists, “ALL OF THEM!”

“No, no, hey,” Charlie came up behind her and grabbed her wrists, pushing herself against Helen’s back so that she was completely surrounded by them. “This is _not_ your fault. You did not make this happen because you wanted it, it is not your responsibility.”

Helen sagged against Bass’ chest, “So I just walk away, I let this happen, I don’t warn anyone.”

“Walking away is the best thing that you can do,” Bass said, his chest rumbling under her cheek. 

“Would _you_ walk away?” she whispered. 

“Yes,” Charlie answered firmly. “If I was in your position and … yes. I would walk away…”

“So that it never happens again,” Bass finished, his tone gentle but honest. 

Helen pushed at them, wiggling away and then wrapping her arms around herself, “Then what are we waiting for?”

They looked like any celebratory citizens of Troy. More heavily armed and better dressed citizens, but no one paid them much attention. Helen looked out at the thriving, happy throngs, the sounds of laughter and shouts and singing coming from every corner of the city. 

“Paris told me I would love Troy. Said that it was the most beautiful city in the world,” she turned to Charlie, who squeezed her hand. “And I never really saw it until tonight.”

“Perfect night to leave,” Bass said absently, his whole body alert, scanning the crowd for threats. 

They made it to the back wall just as twilight started to set in. Helen watched the quiet street and hummed along to the music coming down off the hills in the distance, a sudden pang filling her chest. She reached for Charlie, “What’s happening?”

Charlie smiled at her, “We’re going home.” She glanced at Bass, “I never thought I’d be so happy to go home and see my mother, but today… today I actually am.”

Helen swallowed nervously, “ _Home_ is far away, isn’t it?”

“Don’t worry, it’s not a long journey,” Charlie wrinkled her nose at her. 

Bass wrapped an arm around her from behind, “You were born for this place, kid. Trust me.” He kissed the top of her head affectionately and then moved away, eyes flickering at their surroundings nervously. 

“Psst!” 

Helen looked up and saw Miles peering over the side of the wall, “Miles?”

Charlie looked up also and waved. Miles threw a rope over the side and hissed, “Princess first.”

Charlie tied the rope around Helen’s waist with swift fingers, guiding her to sit down in the loop that she made, and then testing the knot, while Bass threw their packs up to Miles. Charlie kissed Helen’s cheek, “For luck,” she whispered and then Helen was rising up into the air as Miles pulled her up. 

Rather than wait for the same treatment, Charlie and Bass challenged each other to a race, and began scaling the brick wall on their own, the tips of their fingers latching on to every minute edge, while Miles cursed them from above for being idiots. 

“If you fall, I’m leaving you behind,” he whisper-shouted down at them. When Helen got to the top, Miles untied her and then took her hand in his, “I’m really sorry about the whole kidnapping thing. And the marriage. And the war.” He winced. “It’ll all make sense when we get you home.” 

Charlie hauled herself over the edge of the wall and stood up, raising her hands in the air in victory. “I won!” she crowed. 

“It’s your turn, princess,” Miles cut her off, reaching out a hand to pull Bass up the final step. 

Charlie rolled her eyes and then walked to the other edge of the wall, lifting her hand up in the air, caressing the light breeze as if it was an old friend, “Old friend? We’d like to go home.” Her hair blew around her face wildly and she giggled, “Just send a message to Danny, I’d rather you take us.” She reached her hand out and pulled Helen tight to her chest. Miles grabbed Charlie’s other arm and Bass took Helen’s. 

“Hold on,” Bass whispered.

“It’s best if you close your eyes the first time,” Charlie grinned at her. 

Helen shut her eyes tight right at the moment that she felt the whole world start spinning wildly, flipping her upside down and back again. Long after they had settled, solid ground beneath her feet, and the sound of them talking and laughing around her, she kept her eyes shut tight, her face pressed against Charlie’s shoulder. 

Finally, Charlie shook her gently, “Helen? Mom wants to meet you.”

Helen opened her eyes and tried to ignore the hundred or so people staring at her as though she were an oddity. Directly in front of her were two smiling, insanely beautiful, people seated on thrones. Charlie ushered her forwards. “He—Hello?” Helen stumbled over her words nervously until Charlie pressed a comforting hand on the small of her back. Helen straightened and bowed respectfully, “It is an honor to meet you, I am Helen of Troy.”

The Queen’s smile tightened, “Yes, we know who you are Helen. I’m so sorry that your journey was so delayed. My brother in law,” she shot Miles a hard look, “apparently didn’t feel it was prudent to bring you home until _after_ your presence caused a war.”

“What my wife means to say,” the King interrupted, his tone much softer and more welcoming, “is: Welcome to Fae, my daughter.”

“Fae?” Helen whispered, before fainting dead away. 

 

 

Helen leaned against the old oak that grew in the center of her home and smiled over at her guest, raising a goblet to him, “To old memories.”

Bass sauntered over to her and clicked his goblet against hers, “Old memories.”

Helen took a sip of the wine he had brought her back from the human realm and a rush of memory flooded through her. 

After spending a few Seasons struggling to adjust to life in Fae Court, Charlie had rescued her and plopped her down in the Royal Villa on the edge of Wonder Lake. For the first few Seasons, Charlie came and went, visiting for long stretches at a time only to disappear again in the night, while in the meantime Helen got accustomed to living alone. Eventually, she left the villa for her own homestead nestled on the northern edge of the Emerald Mountains. Close enough to Court to visit when Rachel requested her, but far enough away to not be asked too often. 

It had taken a long time, a lot of sleepless, tearful nights, but she was finally happy in Fae. 

Finally _felt_ Fae. 

She could feel it thrumming in her blood just as Charlie insisted that it did.

Perched in the top branches of a tree just out of earshot, Charlie watched as Bass took the goblet out of Helen’s hands and set it down in a nook of the oak before gathering her face in his hands gently and kissing her softly. She looked up at the sky and contemplated the coming storm and then took one last look at the couple, safe and warm in each other’s embrace, before leaping out into the North Wind and letting it carry her to another destination. 

She would leave them to their memories.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \+ For those of you who have read all the parts of this series, there will be allusions in every chapter to Bass&Miles and their pursuit of the Slayer. These will be very slight and off-handed for those that don't want to read the BtVS crossover sections of this series. 
> 
> \+ According to legend, Helen was abducted when she was younger by Theseus, who made a pact with his best bro that they would marry a daughter of Zeus. T-man left his abductee with his mommy and then followed his friend down to steal Persephone from Hades. That didn't work out so well for anyone and Helen was returned to her family while Theseus dealt with his bad decisions. In this version, Miles kidnaps her on behalf of Rachel, and then leads Bass on a scavenger hunt for a Slayer. The more you know. 
> 
> \+ an alphyn in a part-wolf, part-dragon with claws instead of forepaws, a belly with scales, and a knotted tail. pretty cool, actually (http://www.mythicalcreaturesguide.com/page/Alphyn)


	2. there is a perfect man; there is a perfect woman; i have loved them both but it is not enough

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1481BCE - 323 BCE  
> (for the purpose of this fic, I'm dating Troy to about ~1184BCE)
> 
> Charlie seduces and kills, that is what she has been trained to do - bat her eyelashes and stick her knife between the ribs of another unsuspecting mortal - until the day she decides to wander the human realm on her own and she learns something about love that makes her face herself in a way her uncle and his General hoped to protect her from forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> no beta, all mistakes are mine 
> 
> feat. absolutely 0/10 historical accurate plotlines; Charlie is wandering around the ancient world so you pretty much gave up on Reality when you clicked on this fic. 
> 
> This chapter features:: Charlie/Helen; Bass/Helen; Charlie/Thutmose; Charlie/Cambyses; Alexander/Hephaestion; one-sided Bass/Charlie; (allusions to) Rachel/Miles; brotp Charlie/Hephaestion
> 
> warning- violent death scene in the paragraph beginning "Charlie felt Hephaestion stiffen at her back, lean into her, and she looked out at the crowd" - so skip if you are squeamish-

  
  
  
  


1481BCE

The wind whipped her long hair around her face, tugging and pulling a wild warning in the midst of the calm that otherwise surrounded her. She heard a voice behind her comment on her unbound hair and a chorus of laughter. She straightened in her saddle and forced herself not to look back. On her left, Miles was muttering instructions under his breath to the barbarian this company had entrusted their lives to. On her right, always on her right, like a Shadow from home, her uncle’s General shifted his horse closer to hers, but didn’t say a word.

Sometimes – moreso when she was younger – Charlie tried to imagine Miles and Bass standing side-by-side, nothing between them, racing into battle as brothers. Perhaps she was still too young, too selfish, to imagine them without her. Perhaps she had seen them play tug-of-war with one too many women, horses, weapons, battles, ideals, for it to make much of a difference _what_ was between them so long as there was _something_. 

Charlie looked up at the rolling black clouds closing in from the South and back down into the valley at the thirty or so longships making their way up the river. 

“Gonna be a wet one,” Bass smirked, following her gaze. 

Charlie leaned to her left, “Miles what are we waiting for?”

“Could have slept off last night if we were just gonna sit around all day,” Bass groused. 

“Who said it was a good idea to get blind drunk the night before battle?” Charlie muttered under her breath, eyes fixed on the ships below. 

“You,” Miles shoved her shoulder roughly. “Now shut the hell up both of you and let me think.”

A large predatory bird dropped down out of the sky and landed on Miles’ shoulder. It had been centuries since fae and the human realm had intermingled with the ease of the Beginning, but there were still a handful of creatures that were loyal to the Lord of Shadow. Miles stroked the long back of the bird silently for a moment before it lifted itself back into flight. 

“New plan,” Miles said with a grin, looking down at the river below. 

A light rain began falling, a mist that weighed down Charlie’s hair but didn’t penetrate her other senses. The stillness that had permeated the air was gone, a vibration that she alone felt, her uncle on one side and his General on the other, suddenly radiating energy that swept her up into it by the very nature of her position. 

If she had been home, tucked safely away in Court with one of her mother’s mealy-mouthed little courtiers, a spy in silks and furs, would she still have felt that rush of energy under her skin? 

Charlie felt her lips curl up at the corners, and when she spoke she tried to ignore the throaty anticipation dripping from her lips, “My turn?” _Please, please, please._

At Miles’ short nod, Charlie’s face split into a wide grin. She looked over at Bass and winked as she dismounted, gathering her bow and quiver, slinging the latter over her shoulder. 

“Try to be quiet this time,” Miles warned under his breath as she ran off.

As if she wasn’t always. 

She made her way down the long, winding path on the far side of the cliff face quickly, running into the rain, skipping and jumping over rocks and exposed roots. It was as close as she dared get to flying, running headlong down a steep incline, her feet barely grazing the earth, her hair flying behind her like a banner. When she was halfway down, she became aware of a wolf padding at her side, keeping pace with her, flanking her like a guide or a guard. She grinned at it and ran faster. 

The Lord of Shadow still held the dubious alliance of the birds in this realm, but Charlie was a friend to wolves in any time or place. 

With her companion keeping pace, a four-legged shadow padding silently beside her, Charlie flew down, down, down, closing the gap between her and the large company of warriors fighting against the current far more quickly than she could on a horse, or in the presence of any of their mortal companions. Jogging along the edge of the river, carefully shielded by the line of trees, she glanced back up to where she knew Miles and Bass were waiting, but didn’t see them. _Good_ , she needed them to be hidden if this was going to work. 

When she could nearly smell the sweat of the soldiers on the longboats under the heavy scent of rain that still lingered in the air, the clouds threatening a downpour, she slowed and dug her way deeper into the underbrush a few paces. Under a large oak, she hid her bow and other weapons, stripping out of her clothes and leaving them in a heap on top. Her canine companion settled down on the pile and gazed up at her with golden eyes. 

“Bless you,” she whispered, kissing the wolf on the tip of her nose. 

She eyed the men in the longboats warily and then flung herself into the river, naked as the day she was born. 

 

Above, Bass and Miles watched with narrowed eyes the slip of white flesh exposed against the rushing water. 

“She’ll be fine,” Bass murmured in an approximation of what probably constituted his idea of comfort. “She’s done this before.”

Miles tensed as the row of ships stopped, nearly crashing into each other, an arm reaching out to pull Charlie’s limp form on board. As if on cue, the dark clouds opened with a crack of lightning, a rumble from the company behind them burst out in protest to the torrent of rain now beating down on their heads. Through the torrent, Miles could just make out a tall man lean over Charlie’s prone form and then look up at the sky. In a moment, the entire enterprise was flooding out of the boats onto solid ground, spreading themselves over the banks on either side of the river, just as they had planned. Strong arms picked up Charlie and carried her ashore. 

Miles crawled back away from the edge of the cliff and gestured to the men waiting for his instruction. 

Bass leaned into him, “You take high and I’ll take low.”

“No,” Miles looked over his shoulder at his friend. “Charlie’s … I’ll take low.”

Bass ducked his head in acknowledgment and then trotted off to follow the trail Charlie had left behind while Miles turned his attention back to the handful of men waiting for his command. 

 

Charlie waited until the man who had carried her ashore was alone with her in the tent the erected around her before blinking slowly, wrinkling her face into an expression of confusion and then – when her eyes met her rescuer’s across the tent – into wide-eyed fear. She clutched the pelt they had draped over her naked body to her chest and sat up quickly, pushing herself back and away from the man. 

He was handsome, intelligent, it almost seemed a shame he was the one she was there to kill. He smirked at her, her chest heaving in fear, her eyes wildly seeking an exit, her muscles poised to flee. 

“My men tell me you are a vengeful spirit and that I should kill you. A bad omen and that we should turn back for home,” he said to her, his voice low and gentle. 

She glared at him but didn’t say anything. 

“There is debate, of course,” he smiled at her and stood up to walk towards her, prowling not unlike a jungle cat. “You _could_ be an offering, a gift.” 

He sat down next to her and she stiffened visibly, forcing her body to shudder in an approximation of fear when he came close. That was the game she was playing, come in as a welcome guest, burn it all to the ground, wait for her uncle and his General to clean up the mess she made. It was a bloody game, she never walked away from it clean, but it was one she always won. The man ran the back of his fingers down the length of her bare arm and her breath caught. 

She looked over to find him smiling at her. 

_Damn._

Well, maybe it was high time she lost. 

“Your choice, mysterious maiden,” he teased. She felt a threat lingering in the husky undertone of his voice, in the tips of his fingers, in the way he was poised beside her. “What will you be?”

She saw herself snapping his neck; it would be as easy as breathing. She saw herself riding him, moaning into the night, walking away with his blood dripping from her lips. She saw herself winning and losing. 

“What will _you_ be?” she countered, her voice quavering with fear, her eyes wide. 

She was a scared little brown mouse caught in a trap of her own making. 

She challenged him with a subtle lift of her eyebrow. 

His eyes hardened and there was a look about him that was the very picture of her uncle, of a Fae and wild thing, of a man unwilling to beg for a piece of flame when holding it in his hand could burn the whole world down. “I will be a conqueror.”

In the split second before she dropped the pelt to her waist and leaned into him, taking his bottom lip between her teeth, she thought of her uncle and his General waiting on the edges of the camp, waiting for her to burn it all to the ground and smiled. 

Time to play a new game. 

 

Bass waited on the edge of the tree line, watching the bustle of the camp die down slowly. By the time he arrived, most of the tents had been erected and a sleeping shift seemed to have started. He narrowed his eyes and tried to pick out Charlie’s scent on the wind, but the rain and the surplus of sweating soldiers, roasting meat, and mildewing clothes obstructed his senses. It was past time for her to have started, he should have walked out of the woods to a camp hushed into stillness by the edge of her blade. Instead, everything was… 

Off. 

Everything was off. 

When the flames erupted behind him he grinned and swore in the same breath. 

“Fucking Charlie,” he whispered, running back in the direction he came from, hand on his sword, blood thrumming in his ears. 

 

He should have known. Miles looked across the river bank at the faint glow of a fire coming from the opposite direction it should have and shook his head. He should have known. 

Charlie’s heart beat to the songs of the stars in any realm, she was never late, never a minute out of tune. Especially when it was her own damn plan that she was executing. 

When the men at his back began to scream, their bodies falling to the ground as the army they were sneaking up on in the dead of night popped up from the underbrush beneath their feet to strike them down, Miles just shrugged. He should have felt guilty about the look of horror his own men gave him when he turned his sword upon them, but guilt was a useless emotion in a creature older than time. 

 

Blood dripped from her blonde hair, turning it black in the moonlight, and she smiled as the human man with his eyes as bright as the night sky and a heart as wild and longing as her own wrapped her in his embrace, their teeth and tongues rejoicing under the stars. She had walked into battle with only the pelt he had wrapped her in tied to her waist, a short sword in one hand; had slunk through the shadows to her allies and slit their throats before they knew she was upon them. 

“Going to introduce us,” an amused masculine voice interrupted her thoughts and embrace. 

Charlie turned the General, as drenched in blood as she was, a feral grin on his face, and shrugged. 

“Thutmose,” he said in a low voice, snaking his arm around Charlie’s waist predatorily. 

Bass’ eyes flicked from the man’s arm to Charlie’s face and back to him and Charlie could practically feel him stifling a laugh, “Right. So. Nice to meet you.”

Thutmose inclined his head, “I believe I am in your debt.”

Bass giggled like an adolescent boy caught spying on his female cousins in the bath. “Probably not,” he finally choked out, studiously avoiding the amused glint in Charlie’s eye. 

Miles took that moment to come crashing up from the river, drenched from head to foot, but looking a lot more like he had decided to take a bath fully clothed than the leader of an army torn asunder, shouting at the top of his voice, “Bass goddamnit I thought you could _handle_ this and Charlie what the fuck don’t you understand about—“

Miles looked from Charlie, still wrapped up in the arms of the man he’d sent her down to kill, to Bass, bent over laughter in laughter, and rolled his eyes. 

Bass straightened, wiping his eyes, and grabbed Miles around the shoulder with one arm, “Come on brother, let’s get drunk.”

 

“So what did he offer you?” Bass smirked, ducking as Charlie leaned over him to let loose her bow, slicing the calf of the man that rushed her back. 

“Bass! Focus!” Miles flew off the seat of his horse and drove his sword through a man about to stab Bass in the back. 

“I’ve never been more focused, brother,” Bass laughed, slicing through the air above Charlie’s head, stopping an arrow from landing in Miles’ neck. “I just want to know what he offered her.”

He dropped down into a lunge and Charlie ran, leaping from his knee over his shoulder, letting loose a volley of arrows into the crowd as she did, landing on the other side of him with a smile. “What are you talking about,” she shouted over the roar, pressing her back into his. 

Bass leaned his head back against hers, his sword dangling limp at his side, “That boy at the river. What did he offer you?”

Charlie bent double, flipping him over her back and twirling to land an arrow in the eye of a soldier with a fresh scar already marring his face. She grimaced as she pulled the arrow out, throwing it aside. 

“Is this really the time and place?” Miles asked, hacking at the four men that had him surrounded. 

Charlie snorted, she didn’t like their odds. She kicked the legs out from underneath a man running past and sunk her knife into his back, “He didn’t offer anything.”

“I find that surprising,” Bass countered, pulling a sword off of a body on the ground, swinging two in front of him as he advanced on a group of cowering soldiers. 

Charlie darted around behind the men, wrapped her arm around the waist of one, and kissed his cheek as she slit his throat, “He proposed.”

Miles’ bark of laughter startled the group that surrounded him and one turned to flee, but Charlie had already put an arrow in his throat. 

“Damn rude of him, I say,” Bass crowed, smashing a screaming face with his fist to silence it. 

“Can’t all be gems like you,” she teased back, catching an attacker just as he raised his sword over Bass’ head, sinking her blade into his chest. 

“Baby there ain’t no one like me,” he winked, wiping a spray of blood off her cheek. 

“Will you two _focus_?” Miles shouted, pointing at the sudden herd of soldiers coming over the crest of the hill in the distance. 

Charlie panted, a smile cutting her face in two, “Good.”

“About time,” Bass smiled, resting his arm across her shoulder. “This party was getting damn boring.”

 

 

**_Fae, a short time after the Fall of Troy_ **

She was deep in the Shadow Lands when they found her, far beyond the reach of her mother’s spies, and even deeper than Danny dared to go without the Lord of Shadow as his escort. The Shadows clung to her as if she was made for them; they licked at the curves of her body and filled every space between her and the sky. 

Miles looked down at her, nestled in a deep valley wading naked into a waterfall, and wondered how much longer she could continue to ignore the truth of what she was. 

_As long as you lie,_ the Shadows whispered in his ear, as it always did. 

Bass appeared at his elbow and cursed under his breath when he caught sight of the princess. “She’s supposed to be at Court,” he growled. Since returning Helen and Charlie into the happy hands of Rachel, Bass had been pricklier than usual, disappearing into the demon realms and returning with scars that faded within hours, hiding himself in Helen’s rooms whenever Charlie wasn’t in residence. 

It wasn’t like his General to wander around picking fights without him at his side. 

It – unfortunately – was quite in-character for his daughter to run off to the middle of the Shadow Lands for a bath. 

Everyone, it seemed, was ready for a distraction. 

Miles rubbed his shoulder and winced, the scar from Troy was still healing, but his soldiers were antsy and bound to start throwing stones at each other for whatever went on when his back was turned. In all the time that he had known Bass, the General had never been one to share anything willingly – least of all a woman - and while Charlie’s sex life was something he tried very hard to ignore, all evidence suggested that she only shared on her own terms. Rachel’s worried frown when she whispered to him that Bass and Charlie appeared to be taking turns _entertaining_ the new Halfling addition to Court had only confirmed what he had suspected. 

It was a frightening concept, his General and his daughter sharing a lover, breaking all their rules for a woman that probably wasn’t worth their devotion. No woman was worth that level of devotion, but he wasn’t one to argue with the kind of woman that fueled a decade-long war. 

“Go down and get her,” Miles grumbled. “We’re going to the human realm.”

Bass muttered and turned away.

“Hey!” Miles looked down at Charlie one last time and then followed his friend. “Bass?”

Bass turned around, nearly crashing into Miles. He shook his head and stepped backwards slightly, “If she’s out here in the middle of fucking nowhere then she wants to be left alone. I’m not going to charge down there and piss her off. Unless the point of this whole exercise is to piss off your niece and then drag her up to start a war in the human realm _on purpose_.”

Miles blanched. 

“Because after the shit you pulled in Troy, I would _hope_ that you’d think a plan like that through first and not drag us back into it.”

“What the fuck happened in Troy?” Miles spluttered. 

Bass flung out his arms in frustration, “ _You tell me, brother_.” 

Miles winced at the venom in Bass’ voice, but didn’t get the chance to muddle his way through a reply, because Bass had already started making his way on foot down the cliff face to where Charlie was bathing. 

Charlie tipped her head back into the water and watched Bass descend. She had been aware of them the minute they appeared at the top of the cliff, the whispers lingering in the Shadows angry that her peace had been disturbed. She had chuckled at their reaction and while that had done nothing to silence them, it had prevented them from retaliating. 

So accustomed to the world bending to her will, it didn’t occur to the young princess that it was odd the Shadows themselves felt the need to protect the sanctity of her bath from the Lord responsible for these lands. In all the ways that she couldn’t see, Charlie was very much Rachel’s daughter.

By the time Bass came walking up to the small pool, Charlie was fully dressed and mostly dry, lounging on the bank with her alphyn pup, now at least a meter long, asleep beneath her head. She smiled up at him curiously, “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

A curious shadow crossed over Bass’ face, and the Shadows tugged at her, wanting to whisper to her his secrets, but she brushed them aside, the smile on her face growing wider. Bass sat down next to her in a flop, leaning back on his elbows, so close to her that the pup raised his head and glowered. 

“Miles wants us to go up again,” his eyes flick to her face quickly and then are gone, gazing into the crashing water of the falls. “To the human realm.”

She wants to joke about how this is becoming a pattern, Miles dragging them off as they dig in their heels and she can’t. They’ve all three always been running, arm in arm, back to back, from one blood-soaked battleground to another. If she makes light of their regret, teases at all the things they can’t say _I love what you love so what does that make us?_ , at how after all this time it turns out they are more the same than they ever bargained for, if she crosses that line and gives voice to words they can’t ignore everything will be lost. She wants to joke about this new pattern, but if she does it will be true, and they’ll be left fighting for something they’ve already lost. 

The alphyn pup nuzzles Bass’ arm and the General smiles as he raises a hand to scratch behind the pup’s ear. 

“You’re too spoiled already Hektor,” Charlie chides. And the name, the memories, everything they haven’t spoken of, is suddenly _there_ between them and she can’t take it back. So she does the next best thing. In a flash, she’s on her feet, waving up to her uncle at the top of the cliff. When she turns back to Bass, his face is hidden in shadows and she is so terribly, desperately glad that a laugh escapes her lips before she can stop it. “Once more into the fray, then. General?”

This is the moment when she would hold out her hand, haul him to his feet, when he would clap her on the back and make a joke about who lost their lost bet of most kills in battle. This is the moment when they would be soldiers together, comrades, and nothing more. 

And so she did, and he did, and she caught a gust of wind up to Miles before the whispers could reach her ears, before they were forced to deal with a truth that now seemed to be staring them in the face. 

_I love what you love so what does that make us?_

They kept Miles between them and behaved as if that was the most normal thing in the world for them to do. Because it was. 

It was what they had always done. 

 

_****_

**_522BCE_**

Miles remembered a time – not that long ago – when a plan like this would have thrown Charlie into a frenzy of worry and self-righteous indignation. Now, she just sounded bored.

He suddenly really, really didn’t like where this was going. 

And it was his idea.

Bass looked over from where he was leaning up against a tree and raised a bottle of wine at him, “Well then, there you go. Have fun.”

Miles looked back down at Charlie, sprawling in the entryway to their tent, she was chewing on something that looked like an apple, maybe. “You’re not going to try to talk me out of this?”

She looked steadily at him and shrugged, “It’s a plan. Step one, pose as the brother ad take control. Step two, watch it all burn. Seems like a pretty simple plan to me.”

“And you two will just…?”

“Wait here, kill some people, cause mischief,” Bass shrugged and rolled away from the tree, took a long swallow of wine, and then walked over to hand Charlie the bottle. He leaned into Miles for a fraction of a moment before strolling off towards the sounds of the carousing army, “It won’t be the first time, brother.”

Miles watched Bass wander into the labyrinth of tents, following the sound of men laughing and shouting. He turned back to see Charlie looking down at the bottle of wine pensively. He lowered himself onto his heels and looked down at his hands. “It was supposed to be funny,” he muttered under his breath. 

“It is,” Charlie replied solemnly. “It’s hilarious. He just…a little more sword play and a lot less subtle was what he-- _we_ were hoping for.”

_The three of us drenched in blood and mud, laughing in the carnage. Not you alone where we can’t see you, playing a game we can’t win.._

“Come with me kid.”

He didn’t dare couch it as a command and then wished that he could, that she’d listen to him if he did. He had tried to pull rank on her once, when she was still a scrawny beanpole on the wrong side of puberty. She’d laughed in his face, took the sword right out of the sheath at his waist, and decapitated the man kneeling in front of her. 

It was the right call. They found poison on the body, documents proving he was a spy. 

She had the right instincts, she’d never allow a threat close enough to cause harm.

He’d raised her to be Fae, to be Lord of the Shadows, to be ruthless and without pity, even if he might never get the chance to tell her who she really was, she was still all that he made her. 

A soldier. 

Not a soldier, not a princess. Something more than either of those things. So much more than he expected her to be when she stowed away in Bass’ saddlebags. 

She laughed, low, and shook her head. There sometimes, underneath the hard exterior he had fashioned in his own image, was something underneath, an intelligence she couldn’t hide, a desperation and raw that was all her mother. 

“Just… don’t do anything that will make him propose,” he hedged, attempting humor. “Get the army home and let him do the rest, he’s a king, he knows how this works.”

She smiled at him and for what felt like the first time, the smile didn’t reach her blue sparkling eyes. 

Yeah, this was a stupid idea. 

 

Bass looked down at the fresh corpse, blackened and crumbling under his fingertips, and took a deep breath. He had to count on Charlie knowing _exactly_ what to do when he showed up outside her tent, exactly how to respond, without a beat of hesitation. The stench of death surrounded him, seeping into his skin. He picked up the body with a sigh, forming his face into thin lines of grief and anger. 

As he walked through the encampment, appearing – it seemed – from thin air into the center of camp and making his way East to where Charlie waited, men gathered and followed him. He kept his eyes fixed solidly on his feet, on the ground in front of him, kept his face in even lines, didn’t blink or hesitate or dare look anyone in the eye. He needed this to work, for none of them to suspect that the body in his arms wasn’t exactly who he said it was, who they needed it to be. 

It wasn’t part of the plan, this wasn’t the game Miles told them to play, but Bass was about three campaigns past giving a shit what Miles’ plan was. It wouldn’t be the first time Charlie went off-script. It wouldn’t be the last. 

When he arrived at Charlie’s tent, he dropped the burned carcass at her feet, and bent in an immediate bow. _Of surrender_ , his mind supplied. One knee on the ground, the other holding him up, his eyes peering up at her, needing her to understand, to play along. 

Charlie’s eyes flickered between the corpse and Bass and then landed on something behind his right shoulder. “Uncle?” she whispered, her lips parting just _so_ , soft and wet, begging to be answered. She broke into keening wails before Bass could affirm what she _suspected_ , what they needed everyone to believe. 

King Cambyses darted forward, pushing his men aside, and had Charlie in his arms before she collapsed to the ground, supporting her small body against his. Bass had to look down to hide his smirk. When he looked up, Charlie’s bright eyes were on his. He nodded in affirmation before he realized what he was doing, and that was possibly the second time in his long life that Bass realized he only knew how to play by her rules. 

“Kill them,” Charlie whispered, her voice a seduction all its own. “Kill them all.” Cambyses smoothed down her hair and smiled ghoulishly out at his men. 

Bass was placed second in command on the raid that evening, the king himself determined to avenge his guest’s death for the sake of the princess with the golden hair and eyes like the deepest ocean on a clear day. 

Cambyses kissed her hand when they left, murder in her bright eyes, egging him on with whispered promises and blood-soaked dreams. The General kissed the corner of her mouth, his heart stuttering at the contact, her expression amused when he pulled away, his every movement all in the sake of the game. The king brought home his ally’s head on a pike and set it down in front of Charlie’s tent and was welcome inside for the night and the next night. 

The General washed the blood off his hands in a cold stream and slept under the cold night sky. 

The resulting skirmishes kept Cambyses busy while they waited, Charlie’s bloodlust driving him forward night after night. They had been camped in a peaceful territory, an alliance struck and thriving. One false note and it was crashing down all around his ears, but his mind was so full of blood and lust, it probably wouldn’t have mattered if they let him in on the truth of the matter. All that mattered was the way Charlie smiled when he came back to her covered in blood. 

Bass pretended not to relate. 

Pretended that he didn’t push Cambyses up against a tree, didn’t drag his lips and teeth down the king’s throat but only saw blue, blue, blue. Pretended that she didn’t know the minute that they walked back into camp that he’d fucked her king under a tree, the two of them shouting into the abyss, only seeing blue, blue, blue swimming before their eyes. Pretended that she didn’t wink at him and take her king by the hand, lead him into her tent, and rode him until he forgot all about anything but her lips and her hair and her eyes. 

Bass pretended not to understand. 

They swung Cambyses between them like a dog chasing a bone, Charlie with her lazy smile and Bass with his prowling gaze and him a king, seducing a fragile princess and comforting a General who had lost his king. 

(All lovers are fools.)  
( _Love is what happens when you are full of war_.)* 

 

When the messenger came they were all three sprawled in Charlie’s tent, which had become the epicenter of the war camp. They were losing men every day, but Cambyses didn’t seem to mind. The soldiers milling about outside didn’t even think to grumble, they had been under Cambyses’ command long enough to no longer doubt their king. 

He was trustworthy in his ruthlessness. 

There was something honorable in that. 

Charlie watched as Cambyses’ eyes grew hard and distant and had to force her lips to curl up at the corners. They were finally back on the path that Miles had laid out for them before running off to do his part. Betrayed by a brother, a kingdom suddenly in the hands of a traitor, she watched Cambyses’ life slip away from him and it was like a strange, delicate fruit, if she held onto it too hard it would bruise and spoil. She glanced down at Bass, sprawled at her feet, a bottle of wine in his hand and a smirk on his lips. 

She had played the damsel in distress on his orders before, since she was a child, a white flag in the midst of battle that would in a moment betray your every weakness. Never before had she felt so reckless, so desperate, as if something inside her was clawing at her to get out. There had been a dare in the General’s face when he dropped that innocent at her feet and dared her to mourn for an uncle that was safe and sound. 

Those eyes, as he bowed before her and put his game in her hands, made her feel like the most innocent child. And as she pushed Cambyses further and further into paranoia and madness, as she felt her skin become marked by the hands of a man still breathless from fucking the only person in a thousand miles who knew who and truly what she was, she felt herself growing smaller and smaller.

This game they were playing, it felt like retribution, like revenge for something that kept slipping through her fingers. Always, in every action, Bass’ eyes were upon her, a dare, a challenge, waiting for her to prove… something or nothing or everything. No matter how closely she followed the rules, she still felt as though she was losing. 

For the sake of his eyes on hers. 

And if she lost those eyes, if they turned away, then she would be lost in the swirling void of uncertainty that had haunted her since Troy. 

“My king?” her voice was breathless with something that under the circumstances shouldn’t have sounded like desire, shouldn’t have made him harden, sitting at her feet, looking up at the lover they had shared for weeks. 

(It wasn’t the first time.)

Bass reached over and plucked the king’s hand from Charlie’s lap, rubbing the rough knuckles with the pad of his thumb, “Cambyses? What are your orders?” He kept his tone gruff, he ignored the warmth of Charlie’s legs below his outstretched arm, he played the role of the devoted servant to a king well. 

Hadn’t he always?

Cambyses caught his eye, his grip on Bass’ fingers tightening, “We march.” 

They didn’t have the troops, they were thin on the ground and losing more men every day, the trek back to his kingdom would wipe them of the remaining resources they had. A march would mean death, to stay would mean death, to run would mean certain death. There was nothing left for him, nothing left to fight with and nothing left to fight for. 

Bass felt an urge to rise up on his knees, take his king’s face in his hands, press his lips against those hard lips; but it was lost in the sight of Charlie tracing those same lips with the tip of her finger. And there he was, his fingers intertwined with a human king’s delicate fingers, just another consort in a harem, begging for scraps. 

He rolled to his feet, pulling himself away, unsure whether he was disgusted with himself or not, and bowed, “I will give the order, my king.” Charlie slipped onto Cambyses’ lap, her fingernails scratching at his scalp, her knees rest on either side of his thighs, a moan on her lips before Bass had time to turn away fully. 

When he returned to her tent, armor-ready, Cambyses was lying in a pool of his own blood, a knife in his stomach, his own hands gripping the blade even in death, eyes wide open but unseeing. Charlie looked up when Bass entered and shook her head in answer to his own question. They were gone before anyone thought to come looking for them, bloody footprints in the ground leading to nowhere. 

He never asked her what she said to him and she never offered to explain. Miles presumed that she killed him herself and neither bothered to correct him. 

For the smallest of moments, Charlie wished he _would_ ask her, wished Bass would fix her with his steely gaze and demand to know what she said, how she won the game. If death was the goal, she stopped being sure the moment it began. 

She’d tell him the truth and watch him laugh at her, watch those eyes flick away, watch him turn from her in disgust. She’d tell him a lie and watch those eyes brighten, hear him suck in a breath, feel the warmth of his pleasure radiate off his skin. She’d say nothing at all, just look into those eyes, and seek an answer of her own. 

She’d tell him the truth, that Cambyses saw the folly of his ways, knew that he’d never make it home, that this was the last march of his life. That she begged him and pleaded, on his knees, not to die. She promised him soldiers and weapons, she promised him the power of her own kingdom, she sobbed as he said goodbye with his knife already deep into his belly before she could stop him. She’d tell Bass the truth and he wouldn’t see the truth, see how far he’d dragged her into darkness, until she couldn’t break free of it. He wouldn’t see that she was standing on the edge, one foot in the light and one in Shadow, poised for flight and just waiting for the word from him. 

She’d tell him a lie; that she whispered in the king’s ear and turned her words into poison; that she held his heart in her hands and she squeezed until there was nothing left. That she held him between her legs as he died, and laughed as his last breath left his body. That she put the knife in his hands and spoke of a noble death, guided the knife to his skin, but let him deal the final blow. She’d tell Bass a lie and would take it because she offered it to him as if it was truth, the power of that frightened her, made her feel as dark as the lie, as dark as the truth that lie could be. He would take it because she was offered it to him, and he would understand it, and he longed so desperately to understand her. 

She said nothing, just looked into his eyes, and found only questions that she didn’t dare seek for fear of what the answers might be. 

 

“She’s acting reckless,” Helen rose from the bed without preamble, slipping out of Bass’ arms and shrugging into a robe previously discarded on the floor. She was starting to feel like more like a trophy than she had during a decade of war fought over her hand, pacing the four walls of her rooms in the Fae Court, waiting for Charlie or Bass to come and entertain her for an hour or a night or a week. They avoided each other to the point of devotion, they sought out her company with a ruthlessness that she had seen them exhibit with a weapon in their hands. 

It would be charming if it wasn’t. 

Bass sat up and rubbed his face with his hands without answering her. There wasn’t an answer. Not one that he could accurately give. The silence sat between them, heavy and unbalanced, as she stood at the window, looking out at Fae.

“She’s… growing up,” he offered finally, struggling for the right words, the look in Charlie’s eye when he found her standing over Cambyses’ body tattooed to his skull. She was changing, right before his eyes, and it was as terrifying as it was intoxicating. 

Helen turned on her heel and tilted her head to one side as she considered him thoughtfully, “What happened, when you took her to the human realm? She won’t tell me.”

She had. Helen had learned that lying was the easiest way to get Bass to trust her. She had also learned that Charlie felt the same way about her. There had been a story, leaning naked against pillows, of a mad king who took his own life in the face of defeat and betrayal. Charlie’s voice had been simultaneously full of wonder and sadness, as if she couldn’t quite decide whether she should delight in the death or mourn the man. In between her stilted words, Helen detected a sense of responsibility. It wouldn’t be unlike Charlie to take on the burden of another man’s decisions without realizing how much she was exposing herself in doing so. It also wouldn’t be unlike Charlie to play a game with a mortal’s heart. 

She was Fae after all. 

And more Shadow than anyone in Court was willing to admit. 

“She tells you everything?” he felt the accusation on his tongue before it slipped through his lips, but he couldn’t hold it back. Everything about Charlie felt like an interrogation, everything in Helen’s room felt like another trap he had somehow willingly made for himself. 

Helen looked into Bass’ bright eyes and knew, deep in the pit of her stomach, that the mad king had been seduced by not one but both of her lovers. And it occurred to her for the first time, that the desperation in their fingertips and lips when they touched her was frighteningly new and raw for the both of them. 

She was the first thing that they had shared, but she clearly wasn’t the last. 

“Yes,” her voice was soft. He wanted to curl up inside of it, let it make him clean, fall sleep adrift in the silken tones. He wanted there to be her and only her, and not another face constantly on his mind. 

He shrugged and slumped back on the bed, “War. Intrigue. Blood. Death. Politics.”

What else was there between them?

 _Besides you_ , he nearly answered, before realizing that Helen hadn’t asked him a question, hadn’t given voice to the thing that he was desperate to hide, to avoid. 

Helen slid back into bed, resting her cheek on his chest and hummed, “You worked together. Miles left you alone.”

He stiffened.

Helen chuckled, her breath hot on his skin, “Of course I know.”

He pulled her closer to him, pressed a kiss into the top of her head. 

She didn’t finish her thought or ask any more questions and he forced himself not to slip away in the night, to hold her to him and pretend that this was what he wanted, that this was what she wanted, that they were whole in each other’s arms instead of longing desperately for the ghost between them to become solid. 

A sudden bust of light and the sound of something clattering about woke Bass up with a start. 

“Rise and shine lovebirds,” Miles shouted somewhere above his head. 

Bass groaned, _no_. He rolled over instinctively into Helen, burying his face in her side, raising an arm to block his face from the light and Miles’ disturbingly cheery disposition. “Whatever you’re selling, we don’t want it,” he grumbled, lips scratching at Helen’s skin. He thought briefly of baring his teeth, taking her smooth flesh in his teeth, and damn Miles standing three feet away, sinking himself back into Helen and ignoring whatever else there is in the world that wanted his attention. 

“Where the fuck is my niece?” Miles said, settling his weight on the bed next to Bass. 

Helen turned onto her side, propping up her head with her hand, “Maybe she’s hiding under the covers?”

Bass tugged her closer to him, nestling himself further against her, trying to mask the longing that suddenly enveloped him and threatened to drag him down into the abyss. To Miles it sounded like a dare: look underneath and don’t pretend you didn’t know what was there all along. To Bass it was a plea, a whisper, a hope. 

Shouldn’t she be there, tucked between them, as lost to them as they were lost to her?

Miles narrowed his eyes at Helen, “So you don’t know where she is?”

Helen shrugged, “Last time I saw her she was on her way out to a campaign in a demon realm with you.”

“That was nearly two Seasons ago,” something in Miles’ voice made Bass turn onto his back and blink up at him. 

“You _lost_ Charlie?” he tried very, very hard not to make that sound like an accusation, but the way Helen set her hand down on his shoulder made him think he didn’t do a very good job. “Wait,” he narrowed his eyes, “you went on a campaign without me?”

Miles rolled his eyes, “She’s a grown woman, not a pair of boots, I didn’t misplace her. I just… don’t… know where she is.”

“I haven’t seen her in two Seasons,” Helen said softly. “But that’s not unusual.”

Miles flicked Bass’ ear with his finger, “When’s the last time you saw her?”

“Cambyses,” Bass growled. 

Miles raised his eyebrows, disbelieving. 

“He’s been with me since then,” Helen slid her hand down his shoulder and arm comfortingly. “And Charlie hasn’t been here, except to say goodbye again before you dragged her off.”

Underlying her words was the clear message that Bass suddenly suspected was the real reason for Miles’ visit: when Bass was in Helen’s bed, Charlie was not. Damn idiot could have just asked them like a reasonable person rather than wake him up for no good reason. Bass lifted his arm and tucked it under his head, “I’m sure she’ll show up eventually.”

“It’s not that unusual for Charlie to take off,” Helen reiterated, watching Miles warily. “What’s made you worried, Miles?”

“Danny says she’s not anywhere in Fae, at least not anywhere that he can find her,” Miles said in a low voice. “He’s worried.”

“She never leaves Fae without us,” Bass murmured. 

The hair on the back of Helen’s neck stood up, “Never?”

Miles stood up, “I’m sure you’re right, Helen. She’s probably pulling a prank somewhere, or shacked up with some …” his gaze skittered over their naked bodies, as if only now becoming aware of their position. He rubbed the back of his neck with one hand, “Ah hell, Bass. She runs out on Rachel as easy as breathing, but she’s never taken off without telling me where she’s going.”

“So then… where is she?” Helen asked, her grip on Bass; arm tightening. 

“The question is, why didn’t she drag you off with her,” Bass said pointedly to Miles. 

“Go up there and find out,” Miles said, turning to leave the room. “My money’s on her being in the human realm. Find her and bring her home, Bass.”

“And what the hell are you going to do?” Bass called after him. 

Miles paused in the doorway and winked at him, “I’ll distract Rachel until you get back.”

Bass looked up at Helen, “Why do I feel like I got the better job?”

She kissed him with a giggle, trying to hide the fear in her heart. 

 

**__**

**_320BCE_ **

Alexander barged into her tent, flinging open the entrance to flood her with light, a large smile on his face. “Charlotte!” he crowed, plopping down onto her bedroll and shaking her shoulder. “Charlotte! Another victory awaits us!”

The girl wrapped around Charlie woke with a fright and popped her head up to stare at the man owlishly. 

He beamed at her, “What a treat! Charlotte old girl, you didn’t tell me you had made a conquest!”

Charlie kicked the girl with one of her long, tan legs, “Leaving now is probably in your best interest kid.” She rolled over and glared up at her friend, “You are the worst.” In response, he tugged her across his lap and began playing with her hair. 

Alexander watched the girl dress hurriedly and dash out of the tent, nearly crashing into Hephaestion on her way out, who ducked into the tent, saw Charlie sprawled naked on top of Alexander and blushed sheepishly. “I told him to wait, he never listens to me.” He settled himself down next to Alexander, the other two moving over to make room for him. 

Alexander frowned down at Charlie, “I will never understand your penchant for the fairer sex. A fine warrior such as yourself could take any lover, and yet you choose these common girls. Why won’t you allow me to introduce you to my sister in law at the very least?” 

Charlie pouted, “I keep telling Hephaestion that he’s better off leaving you and until he listens to reason, I will take the attentions of young girls to appease my broken heart.”

Alexander’s face grew very solemn, and Charlie’s lips twitched as Hephaestion hid his face in Alexander’s shoulder to hide his smile. “It is true,” Alexander finally said in a low voice, all humor gone. “Hephaestion is the only man in this world or any other deserving of a heart as strong and passionate as yours, my lady.” He pursed his lips, “There is only one thing that can be done.”

“What is that, my lord?” Hephaestion asked, his voice cracking with humor. 

“You must fuck her, my dear,” Alexander said seriously. He hauled Charlie up onto his chest and turned her around, holding her arms above his head with one hand, pressing down on her stomach with the other. 

Charlie’s body shook with restrained laughter and Hephaestion had collapsed into Alexander’s side, his laughter resounding in her ears. 

“You must ravish this noble lady for her heart yearns to cling to yours and I must suffer in silence,” Alexander continued with mock gravity, his chest rumbling beneath Charlie’s bare back. 

Hephaestion raised his head, his lips pressed into a straight line, his eyes dancing with laughter. “As my lord does command,” he whispered, leaning over Charlie menacingly. 

Her muscles tightened in anticipation and behind her Alexander was babbling about his broken, broken heart. She heard something about Achilles in the split second before Hephaestion lowered his head to her stomach, pressed his lips against her skin, and blew out as hard as he could. 

Charlie squealed with laughter, her body bucking against Alexander’s embrace and Hephaestion’s strong hands on her hips. 

Hephaestion raised his head and winked at her, “Do you feel well and fully ravished my lady?”

Charlie tipped her head back, trying to see Alexander as best she could, “My lord? Does this ravishing satisfy your broken heart?”

Alexander shook his head sadly, “I fear my heart is still intact. More drastic methods must be taken.”

Hephaestion nodded seriously and looked down at Charlie’s exposed stomach with the same expression that she had seen cross his face in many a war council. He was in the middle of taking another deep breath, when a cough came from the entrance to the tent, and all three looked up to see one of Alexander’s men standing there, his face bright red. 

“Excuse me, my lord?” the soldier hedged. 

“I’m a little busy right now boy,” Alexander said, bored and dismissive. 

Charlie looked down at Hephaestion and bit her lip. What a picture they made, Alexander holding her naked on his lap, her hands held above their heads, while Hephaestion leaned over her, head low enough to be… She tried to shoot the soldier a sympathetic look, but his gaze was fixed firmly on something on the ground about two feet in front of him. 

“The… um… scouts have returned and you… wanted to know. Your orders were to inform you immediately when they arrived, sir, king, my lord, um…” as soon as he finished delivering the message, the little man darted out of the tent as quickly as he could. 

Hephaestion laid his cheek down on Charlie’s stomach and sighed, “You did give that order, my lord.”

Alexander sagged, dropping Charlie’s hands down, “Well there’s nothing for it then. We must continue this at another time.” He pressed a kiss into Charlie’s shoulder and then gently leaned her forward so that he could stand up without knocking them all over. “We ride out soon, I’ll send some food to your tent, and will expect you shortly.” Hephaestion started to rise, but Alexander stayed him with a hand, “You haven’t eaten anything in days I’m sure of it. Keep the lady company and we will _all_ ride out together.”

Charlie slid her hair into Hephaestion’s thick black curls, “He _does_ know that I’m joking, doesn’t he?”

Hephaestion hummed, his hands still splayed out on her hips, but didn’t respond. 

She dressed quickly, pulling on her Fae armor as Hephaestion prepared the food that was brought for them. As they ate, they discussed the latest correspondence Hephaestion had received from Xenocrates, finding comfort in a philosophical debate while outside the army made sounds indicative of an impending march. 

In the years that Charlie had fought at Alexander’s side, Hephaestion had become a dear friend, not just because he was a brilliant strategist and more than worthy of being Alexander’s second-in-command, but because even in the heat of battle, or the long hours in-between, he delighted in matching wits with her. 

Miles had raised her to be a soldier, a warrior, a General, but she had always been so much more than that and with Hephaestion she felt complete. 

Hephaestion had a delicate sense of intelligence to him, lurking behind an almost feral smile and impenetrably dark eyes. He wore his body like an ill-fitted costume, the power and grace of his violence in battle a glove that he seemed desperate to be rid of in one breath, but clung desperately to in the next. This frantic juxtaposition – so much power and so little trust in that power – at first made Charlie wary of the king’s General. She had been raised by two men who embraced their violence so fully that she had seen them drown in it. In contrast, the restraint in Hephaestion felt to Charlie like a warning. 

Within moments of meeting Alexander, a man so transparent in his desires and hopes it made her teeth hurt, she knew that the love the king felt for his General was reciprocated. It took her nearly a year to understand why Alexander had placed so much love and trust in a man that to her felt like a disaster on the verge of dragging them into chaos.

Alexander had fallen in love with her as much as any man did, when she decided they should. The campaign to make herself into his trusted advisor was one she attacked with a personal relish. She had no ulterior motive, no game to play, no Miles waiting in the wings, no desire to bring him into her bed, it was the most free she had ever felt in her life. 

And he was … nice. 

Reckless, ambitious to a fault, unwavering in his desire for world domination. And nice. 

Sometime after she arrived, Hephaestion had taken a small battalion off for a diplomatic mission while the rest of the army planned for a long march east, and Alexander left in the middle of the night, leaving Charlie behind and in command. 

“Charlotte, my darling,” he crashed into her tent, never doing anything by half, pulsing with energy. “I’ll be back within a fortnight, tell Hephaestion not to worry.” And then he’d planted a kiss on her forehead and was gone, taking with him only a handful of men and leaving Charlie gaping after him. At dawn, her voice rose through the company, passing out tasks to every man in a tone that brooked no arguments. As long as men were busy, they’d have very little time to wonder where their king had disappeared off to. 

She had been out in the field, overseeing training drills and trying not to roll her eyes at the lead archer, who was trying to show off much to her dismay, when Hephaestion returned. He had a false smile on his face and question in his eyes, but he waited for her to be the first to speak. He never spoke first, as a rule, so that wasn’t what surprised her. 

Despite the hellish conditions of their lives and livelihoods, Hephaestion was always – in her presence – the picture of cleanliness and gentility. After having stood not a stone’s throw from him on the battlefield more times than she could count, watched mud and blood and dung splatter his face, saw him cut a man in two without flinching, still he treated her as if she was only a princess and not every bit a soldier as he was. Hephaestion was, from her experience of him, either devoted utterly to the idealism of her crown, or the most decidedly vain man she had ever met – too dedicated to the presentation of his body to allow deviation. That day, under the glaring sun, he came to her muddy, bleeding, and bruised. A cut on his cheek was caked with dried blood and dirt, his hair hung wet in his eyes, there was splatter on his arms and legs from dubious origins. 

Charlie faltered, for the first time since meeting the General, she felt as though she was _seeing_ him for the first time. 

It’s amazing how a woman can see and yet see nothing at all. 

She smiled and his shoulders tensed, “Were you successful?”

He stared at her for a moment, a muscle in his neck twitched. “Yes, your highness.”

Charlie rolled her eyes at the title, which only served to make the man tense all the more. She turned back to the archer and nodded at him to continue his demonstration. “The men will be grateful to have you in command in the interim.” She chuckled, “I fear they think me a bit of a tyrant.”

Hephaestion bowed, “Forgive me, but what do you mean exactly?”

Charlie’s eyes widened, “Alexander gave command to me since you were not here to serve in his stead. Now that you are here, that seems a bit redundant?”

The muscle in his neck twitched again. “Alexander isn’t here?” he said in a low growl. 

Charlie shifted her weight on her feet, “He went flying off on a secret mission three days ago. He wouldn’t say where.”

Hephaestion clenched and unclenched his fists at his sides. “And you didn’t think to inquire as to his whereabouts?” he hissed. 

Charlie shook her head and grabbed his elbow, ushering him away from the group of men, who were no longer even feigning an interest in the drills they were supposed to be doing. “Funny thing I’ve learned about kings is that you can’t stop them from doing something stupid and reckless in the middle of the night if they get it into their heads it is something they want to do. I was a little busy convincing three hundred _thousand_ men to follow my orders without question in his absence. Any _whisper_ that I doubted the king’s disappearance or was not trusted enough to know his plans and you would have returned to a pile of ash and a scattered army.”

Hephaestion stopped walking and rounded on her, “And now I am expected to just believe you.”

Charlie put her hands on her hips and bit out angrily, “He’s _your_ lover, not mine! So you tell me, is it completely out of character for him to run off on a half-cocked scheme? Because if _you_ tell me to be worried, then I … what?” She glared at him as he jumped back, looking a bit like he had just been slapped. Narrowing her eyes, she snapped louder, “What?!”

Hephaestion swallowed. “You didn’t… you haven’t…” he gestured awkwardly. 

Charlie sighed, “No, of course not.” She considered him for a minute, “The king is quite devoted to someone else and I’m very attached to my freedom, as it turns out.” Once she said the words, she realized how true they were and she found herself beaming at him. At his confused glance, she sobered, “Well now _that’s_ cleared up, should we really be worried?”

Hephaestion shook his head, the tension rolling out of his shoulders, “I’m not sure. Did he take anyone with him?”

“A few,” Charlie replied. She listed off a handful of names she was relatively certain had accompanied Alexander on whatever mission he had gotten into his head to accomplish and Hephaestion grew pensive. 

“I will make some discreet inquiries.” He smiled sheepishly at her, “News of our argument will have spread and I shall use that to our advantage. They will think you are keeping information from me and it will not seem as curious when I start asking questions.”

Charlie grimaced, thinking of the men back on the training field. 

“In the meantime, continue as before. Keep hold of your command.” He looked at her apologetically, “The more unreasonable you are, the greater chance I will be trusted.”

“Fantastic,” Charlie muttered. 

Hephaestion bowed, “Forgive my… impertinence before. It…”

“Will never be mentioned again,” Charlie intoned. She reached for him again as he moved to walk away, “I’m sure he’s fine.”

A shadow crossed over Hephaestion’s face, “He’d better be.”

Over the next several days, Charlie began a complete inventory of all the resources throughout the camp and had every company running a new set of training drills. Meanwhile, Hephaestion prowled through the ranks, growing surlier by the hour. For the sake of pretenses, they avoided each other, each knee-deep in their own tasks. 

She felt a stir in the camp before she heard the screams, a sudden diversion of attention and shift in feeling. 

Charlie hushed the man babbling nervously about grain reserves and turned her head, listening. “Leo,” her bodyguard looked over at her. “Leo, what…?”

And then she heard a scream of anger and pain rip through the air. She was running in the direction of the voice before realizing that she recognized it intimately. 

It was Hephaestion. 

She found him standing over the bloodied body of a man at least twice his size, screaming as he kicked and whipped the bloody body in a raw combination of desperation and anger. Around him, soldiers clustered in a circle around the spectacle, bloodlust and confusion and fear on their faces in equal measure. As she watched, Hephaestion flung aside the whip and dropped to his knees and began beating the man with his fists. 

Charlie sprung into motion, shoving her way through the crowd, coming to a stop beside Hephaestion. She heard Leo call out a warning to her, but her hands were already on Hephaestion. She gripped his forearms, fighting against him as he tried to pull away from her. 

“Stop this. _Now_.” Into the command she poured all of the authority of Fae, the silver Court a whisper of steel wrapped in Shadow. Still, his muscles strained against her, his eyes on the man at their feet, and she felt a surge of affection for this terribly mortal man, whose rage and passion did not bow down to Fae. She hauled him to his feet, “Hephaestion. _Hephaestion_ tell me.”

He turned his face to hers, his eyes empty. “A trap,” he whispered. “He walked into a trap.”

Charlie looked down at the man, who had curled himself into a ball, his labored breath and sobs shattering the still air. “And this scum is responsible?”

Hephaestion’s hands slipped from her grasp, falling limply to his sides, “A trap… a trap… a trap.”

“Excuse me, my lady,” a voice came from her elbow. “This man says that he is a spy, fed false information to the king…”

Hephaestion caught her hand before she could strike the man, his eyes focused on her, “He was _bragging_. This soldier came to me, reported… a trap?” His voice dissolved on the question, his eyes losing focus. 

Charlie turned to the traitor, now clawing at the ground in a bid to crawl away. “Bragging?” she asked the informant at her side. 

“Yes, my lady,” the young man said. “Laughing, too.”

She fixed him with a dark glare, “If you are making a false claim---“

“I can vouch for him my lady,” a brawny man with thick eyebrows said, stepping out of the crowd.

“We all heard it,” another voice called out. 

Charlie felt Hephaestion stiffen at her back, lean into her, and she looked out at the crowd, “So then let it be known _now_ , without a doubt, what will be done to traitors – or to men that claim to be such.” She walked over to where the man had attempted to crawl away, raised her boot, and without hesitation, slammed it down on the back of his skull, feeling the bones shatter beneath her foot with grim satisfaction. 

The men circled around stared at her in horror and admiration, but she ignored them. 

“Bring him,” she said dismissively, stepping over the body and taking Hephaestion’s hands in hers. He was shaking, his eyes still hollow holes staring out of his wan face. “Come, Hephaestion,” she said gently, and began steering him towards the center of camp. 

She lead him to Alexander’s empty tent without thinking, a train of men following behind, dragging the body of the traitor with them. At the entrance to the tent, Leo appeared at her side and she whispered to him, “Water, for cleaning. And food. And then bring that young man to me, the one that reported the traitor, I wish to speak to him and anyone else who heard the man’s ramblings.”

Leo inclined his head and ducked away without a word. 

Charlie turned to the men who were carrying the body. “Put it on a spike as a reminder to what we do to traitors,” she directed and then followed Hephaestion into the tent, closing the entrance behind her as a warning to the men to stay away until she was ready to discuss their next step. 

Hephaestion stood in the center of the tent shaking, his arms wrapped around himself in the parody of a child awaiting punishment for stealing sweets. “I killed him,” he whispered. 

“ _I_ killed him,” Charlie corrected. “You just helped along the process a bit.”

He held his hands out in front of him and looked down at them, unseeing, “I… lost control.”

She didn’t know what to say to that, he sounded so scared and small when he said it, nothing like the warrior she had seen in battle, nothing like the General she had seen directing men, nothing like the diplomat that held himself up with so much steadiness and superiority, nothing like the worried lover, lashing out in jealousy and worry. 

“I shouldn’t…” he cleared his throat. “I went too far.”

Someone called her name and Charlie lifted the tent flap to let in Leo bearing a bowl of water, a cloth, and a tray of food and wine. He nodded to her and left as quickly as he came. 

Charlie walked over to Hephaestion, “Sit down. When’s the last time you ate?”

He stared at her, “ _He’s dead_.”

She shook her head, and pushed him to the ground as roughly as she dared, “We don’t know that. For all we know that braggart was also a liar. It would be a foolish thing to lie about, but until we know anything else, you are going to _eat_ and I’m going to clean you up.”

He looked down at his cracked knuckles, his blood and the blood of the man he had attacked a mass of red on his hands. Charlie dipped the rag in the cool water and began cleaning his hands silently. When she was finished, she looked pointedly at the food and waited for him to eat every last bite before she would let Leo back into the tent. 

“I never wanted to be a soldier,” Hephaestion admitted as she held his hand in hers, watching her wipe away the proof of his violence. “But Alexander …”

“He trusts you with so much more than a sword,” Charlie chided. 

“And does your king trust you in the same way?” Hephaestion asked, his brown eyes alert and questioning. 

“I am here, aren’t I?” she dropped his hands and sat back, tucking her legs beneath her. 

Hephaestion smiled shyly, “Why are you here?”

Charlie twinkled, “Boredom?”

He popped a piece of meat into his mouth and chewed thoughtfully, “I think not.”

“Not anymore,” Charlie admitted softly. 

In the beginning, it had been a feeling of stifling frustration that drove her from Fae, first to the campaign in the demon realm with Miles, and then to the human realm – alone for the first time. She had been wandering around, picking up stories of Troy to take home to Helen, who always delighted in a sad sort of way at the mythology of her own life every time Charlie came home, and had heard whispers of a young king with delusions of grandeur. She had found Alexander in Egypt, a bright young boy full of energy and humor and a staggering ambition, and stayed out of curiosity at first. It had not taken long for the young king to burrow his way into her heart, she climbed the ranks of his trusted advisors out of her own desire to grow closer to him, to understand and know the boy king with a smile just like her brother’s and a head for war just like her uncle’s. Alexander’s armies amused her, kept her fighting, kept her moving from place to place, and the king himself became a true friend in the meantime. She found herself less and less inclined to leave his side the more time went by. 

“Why are _you_ here,” she countered, turning back to the man beside her. “The warrior who is not a soldier, the soldier that is not content to just be a diplomat.”

Hephaestion looked down at his hands, “Have you ever doubted… yourself?” The image of Cambyses’ lifeblood flowing out of him, soaking her to the bone, flashed into her mind and she shivered. “I do not trust you,” he said, his eyes boring into hers. “Sometimes you get this look in your eye, as if you do not trust yourself, and the thought of someone as powerful and dangerous as you, fearing nothing in the world so much as yourself, it is terrifying. I warned Alexander against you, but … you remind him of his mother in so many ways he cannot help but trust you.”

Charlie smiled, “The king is so much like my brother that when he laughs I ache for home.”

“Yet you stay,” he countered, leaning back, the tension in his body uncoiling subtly, like a snake unwinding its long body to warm itself in the sun. 

“You,” Charlie pointed at him, “do not trust yourself.”

Hephaestion laughed, a sudden bark that startled her and amused him all the more, “Can any soldier trust himself after gutting down an enemy in cold blood?” He sobered, taking a sip of wine, staring into the cup pensively, “I stand on the precipice between control and violence at every moment, my anger a tipping point that I cannot control, the most subtle annoyance the only thing separating me from that anger becoming the only thing that I am.”

Charlie tilted her head, “Lying.”

He blinked at her, “What?”

“You are lying,” she pursed her lips, considering. “Maybe you don’t know that you are lying. But you are.”

Hephaestion smiled at her, stretching his face almost ghoulishly, “Do I have to guess?”

Charlie stood up, “The only time I’ve seen you lose control is when you thought something had happened to Alexander. He’s what is keeping you from losing control and _he_ is the only reason for you to lose control.”

Hephaestion flung his arms out to the side, gesturing to the tent, “You wanted to know why I was here.” He blinked at her for a moment and then dropped his hands, “If he’s dead…”

“Then _we_ deal with that when it happens,” she said evenly. At his raised eyebrows she laughed, “I’m stronger than I look.”

She opened the tent flap and called for Leo. The next few hours they sat side by side and talked to the men who had heard the traitor bragging about the supposed plot and got absolutely nowhere. There didn’t seem to be anyone willing to come forward after Hephaestion’s display of aggression and if anyone darted out of camp in fear, they were doing so quietly. 

Near dusk, Charlie rubbed her face with one hand and yawned, “I’m starting to think it was all a hoax. An idiot shouting into the dark.”

“So we killed him for no reason,” Hephaestion said huskily. 

Charlie leaned into his side, taking his still-shaking hands in hers, “If this is something men think is a joke, it was right to show them how very wrong they are.”

Hephaestion sighed and rested his cheek against the top of her head, wrapping one arm around her shoulder, “Is this what it feels like to have a sister?”

Charlie chuckled, “I don’t have one. We’ll have to take a poll.”

Hephaestion hummed in response, his lips curling up into a small smile. In a moment, his breathing deepened and slowed in sleep. Charlie closed her eyes and whispered into the night to the Shadows that lurked in the corner of her eye, asking for an answer, for the king to return, for the dread that had seeped into her chest to dissipate.

After what seemed like only a moment, Charlie felt someone kick her foot. She opened her eyes quickly, stiffening, and found Alexander smiling broadly down at her. He placed a finger over his lips in warning and shook his head. “Oh Charlotte darling, if I was a _jealous man_ ,” he teased, his voice barely over a whisper. She smirked up at him and shook her head. He lay down on the other side of Hephaestion, pulling the man into his chest and dragging Charlie along with him, wrapping his hand around her shoulder to prevent her from leaving. “Sleep now, Charlotte,” he whispered, his voice ragged in a way that made her want to leap up and shake his shoulders and scream at him for worrying them so, but she obeyed her king, and went back to sleep. 

(It was a trap.)  
(They kept that point from Hephaestion as long as they could, until the wound under Alexander’s shoulder was nearly healed and they stopped being so careful.)  
(He didn’t forgive them for at least three days.)

Although she preferred the solitary peace of her own bed, or the fleeting attentions of girls with no names and no expectations, her tent was often overrun by the two men after that first night. Alexander, she learned, slept fitfully when Hephaestion was gone on one diplomatic mission or another, and had previously taken to walking through the camp at night. Safely wrapped around her back, he slept soundly and was better for it. Hephaestion sought her out for conversation and advice, bringing with him his correspondences and puzzles to keep her entertained. As he often said, pulling her to his chest and tucking her head under his chin, Alexander had been the closest thing to a sibling in his life, and having a sister was – in his newly formed opinion – a luxury he intended to take full advantage of as long as she let him. 

Their continued presence in her bed, though never sexual, warmed the dead cockles of the soldier’s hearts. Sharing a woman – even a woman such as her – was a far better alternative to sharing an empty bed between the two of them. Charlie shrugged away such nonsense, the Fae court had seen more than one romantic liaison between men, and Alexander did his best to make her supposed love affair with both of them the biggest and best prank he ever played on his soldiers. 

Charlie looked over at Hephaestion and smiled at him, taking him by surprise as he re-read the letter in his hand. 

She never thought she could be so terribly, ridiculously happy. 

Sometimes, in their secret moments, she watched Alexander and Hephaestion together, both so delicate of the other, both so strong and fierce and so loving, and it took her breath away. And yet, it did not instill in her a sense of longing that she had for much of her life felt was missing. They looked at each other, deep love and devotion in their eyes, and she felt nothing but gratitude that need was not directed towards her. Oh, they loved her. And she loved them. Devotedly, fiercely. The love of a cherished and pampered sister. And she found herself pouring that love into their hands without reservation or fear. She could hurt them, she could destroy them, but not in the way that they could destroy each other. 

And she finally felt safe from herself. 

“What, sister?” Hephaestion teased. 

She shook her head and plucked the bit of fruit out of his hand, popping it into her own mouth with a smile. “Nothing.”

Hephaestion put down the letter and shook his head reproachfully, “I know that look. You aren’t going to put mud in Alexander’s saddle again, are you? Because he’s still blaming me for last time.”

Charlie shook her head, giggling to herself. 

“My lady?” Leo popped his head into the tent and dipped an apology at Hephaestion. “The king requests your presence.”

Hephaestion looked up at her, “What about me?”

Charlie pressed a kiss to his cheek as she trotted out of the tent to answer Alexander’s summons, “Come and find out.”

They jogged to Alexander’s tent, in the center of camp, Charlie preferring to be on the outskirts away from the crowds, laughing and teasing each other as they went. Her heart felt so light she felt as though she were flying on the South Wind, summer on her heels and a heady fragrance in her hair. 

When they came hurtling into Alexander’s tent, breathless with laughter, he exclaimed with happiness. “Ah my darling Charlotte! You have a visitor!”

Charlie turned to the other person in the tent and her stomach fell to her knees. 

“Hello Charlotte,” Bass twinkled, his blue eyes full of condescending humor. 

“Bass,” Charlie felt as though the very air was choking her. His eyes flashed and he moved to reach for her, but she held up his hand against him and leaned into Hephaestion at her back. “What do you want, Bass?” she asked hoarsely, her hand gripping Hephaestion’s tightly. 

He shot a confused glance from Hephaestion to Alexander and back to Charlie, “Well your uncle is very keen to have you home, it seems.”

“Tell Miles to deliver his own messages next time,” Charlie spat out. 

“ _Soror_?” Hephaestion hedged, his body coiled and tense behind her. 

“Sister?” Bass smirked. “Charlie girl, what kind of game are you playing here?”

“No game,” Charlie whispered. “There’s no game, there’s no play, just go home Bass.”

Alexander looked ready to pounce and she would bet anything that Hephaestion had a similar expression on his face. 

Bass chuckled with exasperation and frustration, “I need a little bit more to go on, princess. I can’t just return to Court empty-handed.”

“Return?” Charlie frowned. “What were you doing at Court to begin with?”

“Helen,” Bass shuffled his feet. “Helen grows lonely in your absence.”

“Our darling Charlotte has a paramour?” Alexander burst out, glee written all over his face. “I could not believe that no one had captured her heart!”

Charlie winced at Alexander’s romantic heart, wishing he knew better how to hide it from prying eyes. Hephaestion cleared his throat and shook his head at Alexander, which only made Bass’ smile more feral. 

The idea that there were two silly, human _boys_ thinking themselves capable of protecting Charlie - _his Charlie_ \- from him? 

He was Fae, he was _part_ of her, he had always been part of her, he would always be part of her. She was as much Shadow as he, and they were only as fierce as the other. 

His smile broadened, imagining what Miles would say if he saw her here, _their_ Charlie, with two men flanking her as if they knew what she was and what she was capable of, as if they were strong enough to possess even the smallest piece of her. 

Bass looked up and saw a single tear rolling down Charlie’s cheek. 

“Please, Bass?” she whispered, her voice pitched so that only he could hear. “Please just go?”

He shook his head stubbornly, “Miles will have my head if I come home without you.”

“Say you couldn’t find me.”

“Like hell,” Bass growled. 

She smiled softly at him, a slight curling of the corners of her lips and his heart stuttered, stopping him in his tracks. He wanted to grab her, throw her over his shoulder, and carry her kicking and screaming back to Fae, dump her into Helen’s bed and… he shook his head and leaned back. Her eyes still welled with tears, her smile was soft and sad, there was a stillness to her that he didn’t recognize, it snuck up on him and frightened him. He couldn’t remember the last time he was afraid, in that moment he was afraid… whether of her or _for_ her or for himself, he couldn’t say. 

“Say you couldn’t find me,” she urged.

“And then your uncle and Rachel send an army after you,” he argued. He rolled his shoulders and looked at the two men, determined to keep her from him. “If you care about these boys then you will do what you can to stop that.”

“You think your army can best mine?” Alexander scoffed. 

“Yes,” Charlie whispered. “Yes, of course it can.”

“Of course it can,” Bass agreed, happy they were finally seeing things in the same light. Damn but couldn’t she be stubborn sometimes. 

“And what…” Charlie bit her lip, uncertain. 

“What happens when you come back?” Bass offered. She nodded and he rocked back on his heels, clasping his hands behind his back in an expression she knew was pleasure. “So I dump you back in Helen’s bed and your mother never suspects we didn’t know where you were and I pull Miles out of the queen’s bed and –“

“And it all goes back to the way it was before?” Charlie challenged, her eyes full of a sudden fire. 

Us just ships passing in the night, sharing a bed but never each other, fighting and terrorizing in the name of our king who isn’t King, falling into darkness at the same rate but never together. 

“It could be different,” Bass hedged, not sure what he was offering. 

Absolutely sure what he was offering, what he was willing to do, what he was willing to sacrifice, to get her home, to get back in her bed. 

Charlie sighed, “Go home, Sebastian. Tell my mother I will return when I have seen this through and I wish to do so on my own.”

Bass’ eyes flicked over her face, “You will watch them die, come back broken hearted. You will do that alone?”

“And who should I invite to share in this, Bass? You?” Charlie laughed at him and it was a blow to his face. “Go back to Helen,” she waved her hands dismissively, “I will not hold a claim on her any longer.”

Bass blinked at her, “You think that’s what we--- what _sheyou_.” She sighed and moved to the entrance of the tent, “If you refuse to leave I cannot do anything, but I would hope that you would give me this privacy out of respect. I am not the little girl that ran away in your saddlebags anymore.”

She left the tent, her absence a chill that settled on his skin. 

After a moment of silence, Alexander strode over and clapped his hand heavily on Bass’ shoulder, “She will understand one day, if you are patient.” He beamed over at Hephaestion and leaned in to whisper in Bass’ ear, “It took me _ages_ for Hephaestion to accept me.”

“Lying,” Hephaestion sing-songed, his lips curled up in an affectionate smile. 

Alexander tightened his grip on Bass’ shoulders, “Come, you must tell me of your exploits with the lady Charlotte over a fine meal. Hephaestion, will you join us?”

Hephaestion inclined his head, “If my king commands…”

Bass shrugged out of Alexander’s embrace, “My presence here is unwanted. I should leave before I cause any more … distress.”

He pushed his way out of the tent and was adjusting the saddle on his horse when Hephaestion tapped him on the shoulder, a twinkle of amusement in his eye.

“You are giving up so soon?”

Bass looked past the man’s shoulder at the bustling camp and nodded, “If she doesn’t want to come home I can’t force her to.”

“You could stay?”

Bass shook his head and lifted himself up onto his horse, “Not this time.”

Hephaestion kept a firm grip on the horse’s bridle and smiled up at Bass. “A woman’s freedom is a precious commodity. A fact that my sister reminds me of daily and a lesson that you would do well to remember.”

“A princess has duties, to her Court and to her family. I cannot change that.”

“No,” Hephaestion conceded. “But perhaps it is not the pressures of her title that your lady seeks freedom from, but rather the desire to keep her heart to herself.”

Bass narrowed his eyes at Hephaestion, but before he could respond the other man had continued. 

“To love and be loved is a great sacrifice. To cleave to another as your own, is to give up a piece of yourself in a way that cannot be undone.” Hephaestion squinted against the setting sun behind Bass’ shoulder and stepped back away from his horse. “Show her that you ask for nothing and she will doubt your honesty, admit that you need her and she will shy away.”

“So what… do you suggest?” Bass had half a mind to punch the impertinent boy in the jaw, but he also didn’t have much to lose. 

The man shrugged, “Wait, I suppose.”

Bass looked over his shoulder and saw Alexander watching them with narrowed eyes. “Does she know?”

“That you are in love with her?” Hephaestion laughed. “No, it seems as though she really does believe you and this … _Helen_ are the true pair. But…” he trailed off. 

“But?”

Hephaestion shook his head, “I’ve never seen her so nervous before. As if she thinks you expect something of her that she is afraid to give you.”

“That’s rather insightful, after such a short observation,” Bass bit out, frustrated. 

The younger man looked up at him, eyes steady, “Then what do you think?”

Bass cursed under his breath and urged his mount forward, saluting the young king mockingly as he passed. He could smell death in the air, sweet and sour in the breeze. Charlie’s two companions would not last the year, he could wait, lurk in the Shadows, take her home when it was time. 

She had never before gotten herself so embroiled in the lives of mortals before, she didn’t know the risk that she was taking, didn’t know the pain that was about to envelop her. And so he’d wait, out of her line of sight, until she needed him. 

Because she _would_ need him, like it or not. 

Hephaestion ducked into Charlie’s tent a short time after she left Bass gaping after her and took her hands in his. “He is gone, soror.”

Charlie leaned her forehead onto Hephaestion’s chest and sighed, “My family expects so much of me.”

“I did not think that there was anything in this world that could frighten you, and then he appeared as if I summoned him.”

Charlie took a step away and shook her head. 

Hephaestion raised his hand, laying his fingers delicately on her lips, “But he is not of this world and neither are you.” He smiled when she shook her head to deny it, “You should have left with him.”

“Why?” she whispered, tears flooding down her face. 

He only smiled and pulled her close to him. 

 

“He’s taken up residence not far from here,” Alexander groused, irritated at their new guest. “Rumor has it he’s only a moderately competent foot soldier.”

“Who are we talking about?” Hephaestion murmured distractedly. 

“That Sebastian character that came looking for Charlotte,” Alexander replied shortly, his tone growing more irritated. 

Hephaestion looked up from the letter he was composing and raised his eyebrows, “Why does it matter?”

“I’ve seen your sister kill five men with one blow of her sword in the heat of battle with a smile on her face like someone had just offered her a handful of jewels. If this man _trained_ her, he would serve me better as a General than as a common foot-soldier doing only _moderately_ well,” Alexander paced through the tent, disgust lacing his words. “What good is he to me hiding out in the ranks instead of making himself useful?”

“I think the fact that he’d rather _hide_ from Charlotte than make himself known is a more worthy discussion,” Hephaestion mused, turning back to his correspondence and frowning. 

“It is rather unjust of her to not let her family’s resources aid me in my time of need!”

Hephaestion stood up and folded his arms over his chest, watching Alexander pace back and forth in front of him with narrowed eyes, “He’s in love with her.”

“Well _obviously_! A cat could see that! All the more reason for him to be in command, in her bed, doing what he can to help me succeed!”

Hephaestion grabbed Alexander by the shoulders and turned him to face him, “You sound ridiculous. You can hear yourself talking, right?”

“Why can’t she just fall in love with him and then convince him to help me win this campaign?”

Hephaestion laughed, cradling Alexander’s face in his hands, and stepping forward to close the gap between them, leaning down to rest his forehead against Alexander’s, “I don’t think you can order someone to fall in love, even your power has boundaries, my love.”

Alexander huffed, “Well it would be the _courteous_ thing to do.”

Hephaestion pressed a kiss to Alexander’s lips and then released him, turning away to continue his letter, “I don’t think our sister is in love with love as you are.”

Alexander rested his fists on his hips and rolled his eyes, “I could order her to.”

“You couldn’t.”

“I could try.”

“I strongly advise against it.”

Alexander plopped himself down and rested his head on Hephaestion’s shoulder, “What are you writing?”

Hephaestion nudged him with his elbow, “Nothing that concerns you. You should go apologize to Leo before he decides to turn tail and leave Charlotte to find a new bodyguard.”

“What did I say to him?”

“You insinuated that you had fucked his mother,” Hephaestion’s lips twitched.

“Oh right!” Alexander smiled in remembrance. “It was only a joke?!”

“He’s the only person Charlotte trusts outside the two of us, if he leaves because of your terrible sense of humor, she may decide to go back to Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar has been anxious for her to return for an extended visit.” 

Alexander frowned, “She would never leave us for that sop.”

“Well,” Hephaestion smiled. “She might not leave _me_ , but she might threaten to leave _you_.”

“Why are you her favorite?”

“Because,” Hephaestion chuckled, “I don’t make a habit of insulting her bodyguard at every opportunity.”

 

Waiting, it turned out, was something that Bass was not exceptionally good at unless very, very drunk. Luckily, that wasn’t too unusual among Alexander’s men and so no one felt any need to try to stop him or make any unnecessary comments on his behavior. Months of drunken debauchery broken up with marching to and fro on Alexander’s whimsical command and the occasional skirmish reminded him of life with Miles before Time, before Charlie, and he sunk himself into it with abandon. He had never been very good at doing anything by half. Alexander dropping everything for a round of games and tournaments only sunk Bass deeper into the bottle. 

Which is why he didn’t realize Hephaestion was dying until he was already dead, word spreading through the ranks like wildfire. Running to the scene, half-hungover and mostly still drunk from the night before, Bass realized half way to Hephaestion’s tent that he wasn’t the only one running as fast as he could to see if the rumors were true, and also that … he should have fucking _known_. 

By the time he arrived, Alexander was clinging to Hephaestion’s cold body, sobbing and cursing the gods, Charlie ashen-faced a few paces away. Bass stood back in the crowd, watching in silence as the king grieved, his eyes fixed on Charlie, whispering to her Fae ears, _you cannot fix this, you cannot fix this, you cannot fix this_. 

Her eyes sought his out once, looking straight at him without having to search for him, and she shook her head at him when he made to move through the crowd, come to her side and comfort her. Only once, her only acknowledgment that he was there a silent plea for him to stay away, and so he did, lurking in the crowd in silence, just another silent mourner in the face of grief he didn’t feel, but almost remembered. 

As he walked back to his tent, sober in the face of death, heart and arms yearning to cling to the woman that didn’t want him, a Shadow fell in step behind him. 

“You shouldn’t linger, it only makes it harder for you,” Bass hissed under his breath at his walking companion. 

Hephaestion shrugged, “My heart still beats and so I keep walking.”

Bass snorted, unaffected by the Shadow’s ridiculous romanticism. “So you’ll wait?”

“What else can I do?”

“Leave, move on, do whatever Shadows do.” Bass stopped short under a deep shadow of a tree, annoyed, “Why are you bothering me, anyway?”

“Why didn’t you go to her? You wanted to.”

Bass threw up his hands in frustration and began walking again, but the Shadow was right on his heels. 

“She held my hand because I cannot hold his,” Hephaestion remarked sadly. 

“You should leave her alone,” Bass growled under his breath. 

“She has watched mortals die before,” Hephaestion countered, a note of amusement in his whisper-soft voice. 

Men she had been ordered to kill, men that she held between her thighs and killed with a smile, digging a knife deep between their ribs with a triumphant gleam, no love and no mourning in her eyes, no regret on her face. She was Fae, she was Shadow, she was the very instrument of Death and Destruction that she had rushed into being when she was still a child. Death was as a part of her as breathing, as living, as fucking, it all came hand in hand. But she had never loved and lost before. 

The Fae were cursed with long lives, deep hearts, bright passions that burned and burned and burned until it consumed everything in their path. Placing a sword in her hand as a child was the one way – the only way – Miles knew to protect her from the one truth of her own existence that she could never walk away from. Humans, in all their fragile mortality, were the one seduction in all the realms that no Fae had ever been capable of escaping. They were too beautiful, too fleeting, too selfish, too utterly _human_ to resist. 

It was as if the inevitable heartbreak of that fragile, mortal life, called out to the bright and eternal part of all Fae and seduced it into distraction and despair. 

In his youth, Bass had loved, utterly and completely, with a devotion that surprised everyone who knew him, a mortal girl who died in his arms. His grief nearly ripped his own soul in two, his own Shadow threatening to tear away and follow hers into the Underworld. 

“Your love for her could be her downfall,” Bass warned. 

Hephaestion shook his head, “I believe that is only true of you.” He disappeared into the surrounding shadows before Bass could respond, making his way back to Charlie’s side, watching with her as his lover mourned for him. 

“Stay with him,” he pleaded in her ear, his Shadow clinging to hers to stay solid, to stay in this realm. “Please stay with him.”

 _He will join me soon_ , he didn’t say. 

_And then I will be alone again,_ she didn’t say. 

And that was alright, explanations had never been needed between them, less so now than ever before. 

 

Alexander mourned with as much passion and devotion as he did everything else in his life, planning a funeral pyre the likes of which Charlie knew no man alive had ever seen or would again. His mind whirred ahead to campaigns and invasions that he had discussed with Hephaestion before his death, both a man devastated by the strongest blow he had ever received, but still the conqueror that he had always been. 

“You have always liked Babylon, Charlotte darling!” he said cheerfully one morning, elbowing her awake and kissing her sloppily on the cheek. “Wake up so that we can go enjoy it.”

Charlie groaned and buried her face in his lap, annoyed at his intrusion upon her rest but also grateful for his cheery disposition. His mood shifted drastically in the months and weeks after Hephaestion’s death, she could never anticipate how he would be feeling or acting on any given day. 

“Who knows,” Alexander continued, his voice light and teasing. “Perhaps there is a fair maiden somewhere in this fair city who can capture your heart!”

Charlie snorted in a rather unladylike fashion and Alexander smiled all the more broadly. 

“I will never give up hope that I shall see the day you fall in love,” he paused. “I think you will be very good at it, a lover for the poets to write about for years to come.” 

Charlie looked up at him, her eyes soft and sad, “When did you know, that you were in love?”

Alexander’s face fell for a brief moment and then his eyes lit up again, as if he were steadfastly determined to be happy on this day, “That’s the sort of question a young child asks, Charlotte. Next you will ask, _how does it feel to kill a man_ or something equally redundant.”

Charlie laughed, turning onto her back and plucking at Alexander’s fingers where they lay on her shoulder, “If I could not fall in love with Hephaestion, then it’s highly possible I can’t love.” Her gaze flickered over to the Shadow in the corner and she smiled at it, the joke as much for its ears as it was a veiled truth. 

Alexander pressed a kiss to the top of her forehead. “Alas, I fear it is true. You shall die never knowing the sweet sting of love,” he teased, his voice rising in somber melodrama. 

He grinned down at her and then hauled her to her feet, dragging her out to wander the streets of Babylon, a Shadow hiding in theirs with every step. 

 

The night that Alexander succumbed to his own fever, his Shadow leaping up to embrace the one waiting for him still, Charlie made her way through the balmy streets of Babylon to where Bass waited. Since Hephaestion’s death, he had stayed sober, listening to the Shadows that always trailed on his heels, anticipating an end that loomed on the horizon. 

She was calm when she found him, touching him lightly on the shoulder and smiling at him softly. 

“Let’s go home?”

And he had nodded, taking her hand as she called the North Wind to her in an instant, sweeping them back to Court in the blink of an eye. When she tried to pull her hand out of his, he tightened his grip, turning her to look at him. 

“Falling in love with mortals is a dangerous game, princess.”

She blinked at him, tilting her head to the side, “You think that they were my lovers, those two boys?”

“I think that I have watched you seduce men before, but this was the first time you forgot yourself and got yourself attached to the men who shared your bed.”

Charlie extracted her hand from his grip and shook her head, “I never took them to bed, Bass.”

“Then…?”

“Then why did I stay? Why did I wait with Hephaestion in death? Why did I hold Alexander’s hand as he took his last breath? Why did I refuse to leave when you came to fetch me home under Miles’ orders?” She huffed a half-laugh and shook her head. “For all the reasons that you wouldn’t.” 

_But I would,_ he thought as she walked away. And he was no longer certain that was true or not. 

 

“And you did not love them?” Helen inquired curiously, sitting up in bed, watching Charlie as she dressed herself quickly. 

Charlie turned to her, her face bearing an expression that might have said _don’t you see?_ or possibly _haven’t you always known?_. She sighed and sat down on the bed next to Helen, just far enough away that it seemed natural not to reach out and touch her. “Once, Hephaestion met us on the road coming back from a journey that had lasted him several months. I always stayed with Alexander because …” she shook her head, waving away the thought. “He came into the tent and only had eyes for Alexander, reached down and… I loved them, but not as they loved each other.”

Helen yearned to reach out, to take Charlie’s hand in hers, to somehow stop what she knew was coming next. _Please, please, please_ , she thought desperately, as she always did, the mantra beating in her mind in the rhythm of her beating heart, as it had since she first met Charlie on that darkened balcony all those years ago. 

“You aren’t broken, for loving in your own way,” she hedged. 

Charlie stood up, taking a deep breath before saying, “I’m so sorry Helen.”

_Please, please, please._

“I love you, but not enough.”

Helen held up her hand, “Shouldn’t it be _my_ decision how much love I want? Wasn’t my entire mortal life a battle over who and how I should be loved that I had no hand in?”

“And me?” Charlie countered. “I should live this way, having seen devotion in its purest form and deny you that chance?” She stood up and wrapped her arms around her body, hugging herself as if she may fall apart. “If I cannot love the most beautiful woman in the world, then I must not be able to love.” She bent down and kissed Helen softly on the cheek, “I adore you, but…”

“Not enough,” Helen whispered, her eyes closed, tears trickling down her cheeks. 

When she opened her eyes, Charlie was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \+ Thutmose III was pretty cool, this is probably a terrible depiction of him - but let's face it, Charlie would totally want to bang Charles Michael Davis  
> \+ Cambyses really did stab himself to death, you should wiki that shit, it's wild as hell.  
> \+ Due to the pressures of [](http://archiveofourown.org/users/semele)semele Hephaestion is more accurately a thinly-veiled Bob Morley RPF and I blame her rather than apologize.  
> \+ I also don't apologize for writing Alexander the Great as a giant fluffy teddy bear obsessed with everyone's love lives; hi my name is Kelsey and you should have seen that one coming :)
> 
> xoxo I was hoping this chapter would get us through 790CE but Hephaestion pulled a Helen of Troy and wrecked my word count. EVENTUALLY we will get through the rest of history as we know it, it's just going to take longer than I anticipated :*


	3. step on my heart, it's dark as the night anyway

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 37CE - Charlie mourns in the Shadow Lands until a lost Shadow pulls her into the human realm and she meets a man whose grief is just as loud as her own

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yup, you read that summary correctly: all takes place in one(ish) year
> 
> warning: not everyone is going by names that you typically know them by, but there's enough foreshadowing/allusions that I'm not expecting there to be *too* much confusion over what exactly is happening here
> 
> (see notes at the end for translations)

Bass took Helen’s hand in his and smoothed the pad of his thumb over her knuckles softly. She smiled up at him and then focused her eyes on the other person in the room. All her Seasons in Fae, she had learned how to wear her power as if it were the most natural thing in the world, even when surrounded by royalty. Possibly more especially then, a Land Locked daughter didn’t last as long in Court as Helen did without learning how to negotiate the fact of Queen Rachel at every moment. 

Miles dragged a hand through his hair roughly, “Tell me again. She didn’t try to stop it. She didn’t try to put their Shadows back.” He was starting to look a little too polished, too sharp; he’d been spending too much time at Court, too much time in Rachel’s bed and not enough time doing what he had been created to do. 

Death sat on his shoulders like an old friend and in this moment, it seemed in danger of slipping out of his grasp. 

Bass shook his head and turned back to him, “Just watched.” He was restless and annoyed. They’d had this conversation before, a thousand times, inside of Court and out. It wasn’t any clearer in his mind, there wasn’t an answer that made sense, there wasn’t a _reason_ that he could wrap his mind around. And meanwhile, he was stuck here – been told too many times and in too many ways not to go to her, not to find her, not to comfort her. 

He had stood in the Shadow Lands and found the forest lanes of his childhood unwelcoming, his home had found a new Master. Bass wondered if Miles had tried to seek out his daughter, if the Shadows had blocked his passage in the same way. 

He was too afraid of the answer to ask. 

“And they both died of fevers, just _illnesses_ , and she didn’t try to stop it?” Miles began pacing in a straight line back and forth across the room, his movements crisp and precise, his heels clattering against the floor. 

Helen squeezed Bass’ hand gently, her eyes fixed only on him despite Miles’ dramatics, “I don’t understand. _Should_ she have tried to do something?”

“Yes,” Bass said in the same moment that Miles said: 

“No.”

Helen smiled her soft smile, eyes sparkling. “Ah yes, I see now.” She didn’t have much in the way of experience with the Lord of Shadow and his General in the same room at the same time, in fact since coming to Fae Miles had done his best to stay out of her way, but there was so much of Charlie in Miles that nothing he did ever took her by surprise. 

“Every Fae always does,” Miles explained as patiently as he could, tension rolling off of him in waves. “A mortal death, a…”

“A mortal lover’s death,” Bass interjected. “Something stops our ability to see reason. Fae have ravaged entire cities trying to drag a Shadow back to a mortal body in rage and desperation.”

“We go blind,” Miles finished. “That’s the only way to explain it.”

Fae grief was like nothing else in the Universe, it couldn’t be explained or controlled once it took hold. The fact that Charlie had somehow taken her grief and turned it inwards was troubling, not just because it was unique, but because that level of destruction leveled at oneself could change the Charlie that they had known forever, leave her wrecked beyond repair. 

“You both have experienced this,” Helen asked curiously. 

They nodded, eyes unfocused, lost to their own memories. After a moment they caught each other’s gaze across the room and turned back to Helen. They had both dealt with the unshakeable fact of mortality in their own way, but had never left the other’s side. 

“She did say that she wasn’t in love with them,” Helen offered. “Maybe…”

“Rachel killed a thousand men when a child she was fond of died in the Before, trying to bring it back to life. It is about love and devotion, not about flowers and poems,” Bass said gently. 

The force of a Fae trying to drag a Shadow back into a lifeless body was catastrophic. Rachel’s efforts had caused an earthquake that reshaped the fabric of the mortal Earth. No one ever voiced it, no Fae dared acknowledge it, but the strife between the Court and the Lord of Shadow was rooted in a desire to break the rules of mortality. Every war fought in Fae between the two kingdoms was at its core a disagreement over the rules of death. Charlie had the power to do more harm than any other Fae and yet she hadn’t even shown the slightest beat of temptation to do so. 

“So what does this mean?” Helen finally said after a moment of silence. She was starting to feel the weight of thousands of years of history invade the room, hanging about in the air, the Shadows on the floor lengthening the longer they spoke without saying anything at all. 

Miles shook his head, “I’m not sure. But I don’t think we’ll be seeing her around Court for a while.”

“Danny says she peeks in on Helen every once in a while,” Bass said quickly, pressing a kiss to Helen’s wrist. 

Helen glanced up into the trees that surrounded her home and prayed Charlie wasn’t there at that moment, listening to this conversation. _Spy any other day but this one_ , she pleaded. _Don’t listen to their fear for you._

Miles shot them a glance that Helen chose _not_ to read as hostile, “And she didn’t say anything to you before she left?”

“She said she couldn’t love me enough,” Helen murmured. “Apparently she got it into her head that there was a proper amount of love that a person should offer to another in a… _liaison_ such as ours, and found herself lacking.”

That didn’t really sound like Charlie to Miles, but then… his Charlie wouldn’t have fallen for a pair of human sops set on conquering the world, either. _His_ Charlie would have played them for the fools they were, knocked them down a peg or two, and set off into the sunset with their hearts in her belt, beating or not. 

He’d thought he’d given her all the armor she could ever need. 

He’d apparently not kept her safe enough. 

Miles stopped pacing, “Well as long as _you two_ are happy, I guess. One less thing for me to worry about.” He ran his hand through his hair again, the gesture in danger of becoming habitual. “I have to go see to Rachel, keep her … distracted until Charlie decides to come home.” He darted out of Helen’s rooms as quickly as he had entered them, his pace steady and sure. 

In his absence, the Shadows creeped forward still. Helen glared down at them, as if her mistrust and anger with their kind would keep them from coming to her rooms, watching her sleep, reporting back to their mistress. Or whatever they did. They surely didn’t feel like the kind of creatures one wanted lurking around. 

Helen looked up at Bass, “Do you know what happened? Why she didn’t ‘go blind’ like Miles said?”

“I told her not to, stood far enough away not to anger her, but close enough to try to stop her… it was like the thought never occurred to her.” He stared pensively down at their hands, “She held his hand, the one who died first, until the other died and they could be together. Kept them company.”

 _And I kept my distance_.

“Like a human would,” Helen mused. 

Bass looked down at her, startled. 

“Isn’t that what you were thinking?”

He shrugged. “What did she say to you, when she came to say goodbye?”

Helen hesitated, they had never discussed Charlie between them before. She was the thing that kept them circling back to each other, but always the unspoken word that never escaped their lips. That night in Troy, when it all began (one night in a hundred nights when they were still all together pretending like that could be enough), was their only moment of peace and understanding. In all her time in Fae, this was the one thing she had not been able to reconcile. 

“She thinks that she was standing in our way, was the thing between us keeping us apart,” Helen sighed. “She didn’t _say_ it, but she meant it. She’s so …”

“Young? Foolish? Ridiculous?” Bass dropped her hand and walked over to the window, peering out into the mountains that surrounded Helen’s new home. “She’d like it here.”

“You don’t have to keep coming to see me,” Helen said softly. 

There were a dozen or so Fae roaming around her courtyard, leaving Court in order to seek her favor. She was a favorite: powerful, beautiful, capable of keeping Rachel’s good favor and interest despite her dalliances with the princess and her decision to leave Court, she was still in good standing with the Queen. A good number of the Fae circling around her heels seeking her attentions were hoping for that good humor to pass onto them if they were in her company. She didn’t mind that so much, didn’t mind any of it, she was Helen of Troy and now she was Helen of the Fae Court, a Land Locked Daughter and favorite of the King and Queen, with her own power and influence. A companion would not be difficult for her to find. 

Bass didn’t turn back to her, just looked out, listening to Fae settle into night. 

Helen broke the silence sometime later, “I don’t… You are the only thing that …”

That understands, that knows, that feels what I feel, that can hold me close when I cry and …

_You love her, too._

“And that makes us the same, does it?” Bass bit out sharply. 

She winced at the self-deprecating humor that laced his angry words and then thought of Charlie, who loved so fully and so wonderfully and felt in herself something that was so desperately lacking despite her passion; Charlie, alone in the Shadow Lands with her grief. Charlie, who should be tangled up between them, sated and protected. There was a hole in her bed that no one could fill and a hole in her heart that she never wanted to fill. 

There was a sort of effortless beauty in a love that was not returned. 

“It makes us absolutely nothing,” she whispered, turning away. 

They had this argument once a night these days, in the twilight as the shadows started to deepen, and yet he always stayed. He refused to be lonely and she refused to turn him away. It was the kind of tragic cycle no poet would ever write about. In comparison to what they had with Charlie between them, all that flash and substance and poetry in the making, it was almost a relief. 

She smiled. 

He would hate to know that he was a relief, a balm, a comfort. He wanted so much to be the dark and dangerous thing, to be the man you turn away, the man you hate even as you fuck. He was her comfort, a warm embrace on a cold night, he wasn’t poetry and he wasn’t substance and that was all she wanted right now, in this moment, after all that had happened. She had loved so deeply to cause wars, to cause poems, to cause bloodshed and tears. She was the damsel in every heroic epic and now she was second best sleeping with her second choice and that was good enough. 

It was a relief. 

“It makes us absolutely nothing,” he chuckled to himself, staring out at the night sky, and then he turned and followed her to bed.

**_37CE_ **

There was a storm brewing in the distance. Charlie could feel the air thickening around her, the electricity rising, a restlessness rising in her stomach. It was unsettling. Beside her, Hektor eyed her warily, his greying snout the only thing she had around her to keep time. 

The Shadow Lands had embraced her when she returned, rejecting her mother’s pleas for a reconciliation, ignoring her uncle’s customary balm of violence that even after all she had seen and done he thought could appease her, pretending that the ache in her resiliently beating heart had nothing to do with the memory of Helen’s broken heart. Deep in her uncle’s lands, accompanied by only her alphyn, Charlie forged new pathways and lived in the restlessness of her own memories. The Shadows clung to her, exposing themselves, dispelling the light wherever she walked, holding her hands and ushering her further and further into the heart of Shadow. In all the Seasons she spent in their silent company, she never saw her uncle or his General. Occasionally, an East Wind would tug at her hair but she only sent it off with a kiss and a sad smile. 

She lay on her back, looking up through the cracks of the thick canopy at the sky and watched it darken slowly, her keen eyes aware of every shift of light, Hektor beneath her head. 

“It’s not a Fae storm,” she whispered to her pup – after all this time now nearly twice her size, but still a puppy in her eyes. Hektor growled and closed his eyes. He didn’t much care for the world outside their immediate surroundings. 

Rachel had raised Charlie and Danny on stories of giant alphyn rising from the Shadow Lands and killing off Fae indiscriminately, terrorizing children and warriors alike. From her experience of Hektor, Charlie now believed that either her mother had a confused the alphyn with another creature now long gone, or had an unfortunate experience with a specific alphyn that was uncharacteristically hyper and aggressive. Hektor spent most of his life asleep at her heels and seemed truly offended any time action or movement was required of him. She told him in exasperation several times that he didn’t have to accompany her _everywhere_ she went, but after disappearing for several Seasons into the human realm, he had developed a slight distrust in her ability to return. 

Charlie watched the storm encroach over Fae with startling swiftness and narrowed her eyes, “Hektor, I think …”

Think what? Think she should get involved, go back to Court and inform them of something they probably already knew was imminent? It was a magical storm, spreading over from the human realm, powerful and destructive. Nothing on this level had occurred since the Beginning, since before she had been alive. 

Charlie sat up, the hair on her arms standing up, and watched a flash of lightning light up the dark sky with a worried frown. And then the canopy above squeezed in on itself, the forest protecting her from the torrential downpour she could hear crashing to the ground around her. 

Hektor lifted one eyebrow and then another. 

“Oh _now_ you agree that it’s weird,” she griped. 

Hektor lifted his head and sneezed, which was about as close as he ever came to answering her. But as this was the only answer he ever gave, it was anyone’s guess what it meant on any given day, and Charlie couldn’t be bothered to try interpreting it correctly. 

Some undergrowth on her right rustled and she turned to look at the soft sound, greeted immediately by the South Wind flinging itself through the Shadows that always lurked around her. The Wind wrapped itself around her like a particularly energetic kitten, warming up her limbs as it brushed over her playfully, darting in and around her with a childlike eagerness she had nearly forgotten was the South Wind’s nature in her time buried in Shadow. The Shadows around her whispered reproachfully, it was too fast, too warm, too foreign, and it loved her enough for them to slink closer in jealousy. 

The Wind nipped at her hair, tugging at the ends, urging her to stand and let it sweep her away. Charlie remained seated stubbornly. “They don’t need me,” she argued with the Wind. “Stop asking me to leave.”

The South Wind grew more impatient, pulling at strands of her hair with a strength that surprised her, stinging her raw senses. She had been in Shadow so long, the sudden onslaught of the warmth and energy of the South Wind made her fingers and toes tingle and prick uncomfortably. 

“Fine!” she finally shouted at the Wind in exasperation. “Bring my brother here, I will tell the Shadows to ease his path.”

In a blink, Danny was standing in front of her, blinking in shock, his hair rumpled as though he had just woken up or had been attacked by a particularly malicious Wind. He began shivering the moment his feet touched the ground in Shadow, the sudden chill sinking into his bones having nothing to do with the storm raging all around him. 

Charlie whispered to the Shadows with a gentle reprimand, and they slunk away from the visitor, leaving a discernable halo of space around him. She sensed more than saw the South Wind and West Wind swirling around him, attempting to keep him warm and safe. 

“Charlie?” Danny whispered, blinking into the gloom of the forest and picking up the faint edges of her silhouette cloaked in Shadow. “Where am I?”

Charlie flicked her hand and a fire lit in the space beside them, casting a golden light over the two of them. A few Shadows plucked at her hair and fingers in silence, like small children being told they must go to bed early while the adults discussed important affairs.   
She smiled at her brother, “The South Wind? You sent that child to me? Why not just come here yourself if you needed to see me so badly?”

Danny frowned, “I didn’t send her. I didn’t even know she was looking for you. I didn’t know anything that wasn’t pure Shadow could get this far—is that Hektor?!”

Hektor sneezed behind her and then put his head back down on his front claws, closing his eyes in a clear sign that he had nothing more to add to the conversation. 

“What is going on, Danny?” Charlie nodded up to the sky. 

“A Chosen One, a Savior. Been using a fair bit of the remaining energy from the Beginning in the human realm, making waves down here for a while,” Danny wrapped his arms around his waist and shivered. “How do you stand living here?” he looked pointedly down at Charlie’s bare legs and feet. 

“He died, then?” She looked up at the closed canopy, knowing that she’d see all manner of clouds rolling past. A Chosen One disrupted the balance everywhere, even if they were necessary in order to create a new sense of balance. The shift between life and death was only a single moment in the human realm, but the effects could last Seasons in Fae. 

Danny shrugged, “No one really knows.”

She snorted, “I bet Rachel thought I was responsible.”

“You did just _disappear_ in the middle of the night. After coming back for only a day,” Danny’s face flushed with frustration and something tugged at Charlie’s heart. 

“I’m sorry, Danny. I needed…”

He raised his hand, “I don’t want to hear about it. And mother didn’t suspect you of anything.”

Charlie sat down on the ground, curling her legs up beneath her. “I _am_ sorry for leaving, Danny. But it’s not like you couldn’t visit me.”

He looked at her curiously, “The Wind couldn’t find you. Nothing is allowed this deep into the Shadow Lands. I’m still not entirely sure what is happening, how you’re still alive. Or why you came so far in the first place.”

Charlie plucked a blade of grass off the forest floor, twirling it between her fingers silently. A new blade grew up instantly, a more vibrant shade of green that the other, a detail that didn’t escape Danny’s notice. 

“You left Helen broken-hearted, all of us confused, dad was out of his mind for the first Season with worry.”

“Oh, Helen,” Charlie grimaced. “I _am_ sorry for that.”

“The only one who didn’t seem completely turned around was uncle Miles.”

Charlie looked up at him, a single tear shining bright in the corner of one eye, threatening to spill over. 

Danny’s face hardened, “No. Don’t bat those pretty blues at me. I’m not interested in a sad, sad story about whatever happened in the human realm over three Seasons ago. Whatever it was doesn’t excuse you disappearing into the middle of Shadow where no one can find you! It doesn’t excuse you disappearing into the human realm for years and then coming back for a single day only to disappear into the Shadow Lands!! Seriously, Charlie?!” He stopped, breathless, panting a little bit. 

The Shadows murmured approvingly at him, whispering to her about his anger, swimming around in the excess of it. 

Charlie smiled up at him and then mused softly, so softly he nearly didn’t hear, “It’s funny, how they used to remind me of you and now you are the one who feels like an echo of them.”

Danny opened his mouth and then closed it, frowning down at her. “You fell in love.” He sat down on the ground with a sudden plop, face breaking into a smile, “You fell in love!?”

She shook her head, “No. I didn’t.”

Danny cocked his head to one side, the South Wind tossing his hair in and out of his face, “You came back and broke Helen’s heart and then spent so much time in the Shadow Land we thought you had turned _into_ Shadow because there’s no other way for you to survive out here for this long and you’re telling me that you _didn’t_ fall in love?”

“Not in the way that you mean,” Charlie said primly. “I’m not about to start writing poems about Hephaestion’s lips or Alexander’s thighs or anything like that. I never… we never… it wasn’t love.”

“They died?” Danny looked over at her with a curious expression on his face, something akin to longing or frustration. 

“I’ve killed _so many_ people, Danny. So many humans, their fragile hearts stopping mid-beat because of _my_ hands, but I didn’t understand,” she looked off into the distance, a flash of lightning reflecting off her eyes. “Their whole lives are one heartbeat here, one moment and then they are gone.”

“ _Mortals are defined by their death_ ,” Danny offered, repeating the proverb known by all Fae children lisping at their mother’s knee. 

“No,” she shook her head. “They are defined by their lives, short and fleeting and painful as they are.”

“And what are you defined by, princess?”

“Men that I have killed without a second thought and boys that I could not save and a woman that I cannot love?” Charlie laughed self-deprecatingly. 

“You don’t love Helen?” Danny grasped at the one thing he thought he might be able to understand. 

“Bass loves her,” Charlie shrugged, smiling back at him, her eyes focused on his face once again. 

Danny was very proud of himself, for the rest of his life, for holding back the smile that threatened to break out on his face at that simple and innocent statement. “She moved out of the family villa and into a small shelter in the Emerald Mountains,” he said with a cough. 

“I know,” Charlie said simply, unconcerned. 

“Mother wasn’t happy.”

“Is mother _ever_ happy?” she wrinkled her nose and for a brief moment, it felt to him as though he might finally have his sister back in his sights and not the strange, Shadow Creature that spent so much time away from Court, nursing her own wounds without assistance, had made her. 

If she had ever been a creature of their mother’s Court. 

Here, with Shadows clustered around her, whispering in her ear the way the wind and birds flocked to him, children demanding attention from their Fae mother, she seemed as though she had sprung from this land like a dryad. He envied her the freedom and safety she felt in the darkest parts of Fae, her skin a shield against the chill of the Shadows, her own body vibrating with an energy and light that made her the most beautiful impossibility of the whole realm. The birds, they whispered to him of her birth, half-Shadow and half-Court, the birds, they whispered to him of her every movement, the whole realm more in-tune to her body and her mood than any Fae before her. When she cried, a storm gathered over the River Valley, when she laughed the dwarves in the Cloud Mountains complained of tremors in the earth, when she played flowers bloomed in the Summer Forest, when she was absent, the whole realm seemed blanketed in stillness. 

That was how he knew she had been home all this while, lurking in the Shadow, he knew when she flew on the East Wind to watch over Helen, when she slept, when she ate, the whole realm told him her moods. 

Her mourning was threatening to seep into the human realm, had it not been for the Chosen One there, disrupting the balance. 

He stopped trying to speak to their mother about his sister’s place within Fae the first time she left on an adventure with their uncle, the leaves had fallen from every tree in protest of her absence and yet the Queen did not see the power her daughter had over Fae. 

Danny had long ago given up any sibling jealousy of Charlie’s freedom within and outside of Fae. If she had the other realms and the Shadow Lands, he had the Between and their aunt Priscilla’s ear. His was the shorter burden, heavy only for the fact that it was finite. 

_The truth is always the last thing in the world we ever want to hear, and the first thing we ask for._

“You were going to tell me why you were so insistent to see me today,” Charlie prodded, interrupting his secret thoughts. 

“I want to see you every day.”

“You lose yourself in Fae as often as I do, why am I always the one at fault for leaving Court when we are equal in our disdain for it?” Charlie spluttered. 

“I think…” Danny said slowly, pursing his lips. “I think that you are just easier to pick on, you take it all so seriously.”

Charlie burst into giggles, the sound bursting out of her in a rush, scattering Shadows in a whirlwind, the South Wind nipped at Danny’s ear in delight. In the distance, lightning flashed and the torrent of rain slowed to a drizzle, the crashing sounds ebbing away, chased away by the princess’ laughter. 

Danny looked over at his sister, with her bright eyes and wild hair, and he lied. He covered the truth in a joke and it was too much to expect that anyone see it. 

She was terrifying, that girl sitting in the middle of Shadow, laughing away a storm built over thirty years, a princess made of every world, understanding nothing at all and changing the structure of things at a whim. 

When he returned a short time later, his sister left behind dancing with Shadows deep beyond the reach of the Court, Danny strode purposefully to his mother’s quarters, dismissing the worried servants and guards that tried to stall his path. He broke into a smile when he found his uncle in her bed, Rachel herself lounging on a daybed on the other side of the room. 

“My family is utterly predictable,” he said without preamble. “My sister is hiding in the Shadow Lands, turning the forest into her own playground, you two hide away as if your daughter didn’t just put an end to a rising inter-dimensional storm with a simple laugh, and my father sits on his throne as unconcerned and heartless as always.”

“Heavy is the crown,” Rachel said with a smirk. “And Charlie didn’t stop that storm, it merely ran its course.”

Danny raised his eyebrows at his uncle, “Do the Shadows still speak to you?”

Miles sat up, the bedcovers gathering at his waist, much to Danny’s relief, “Not so much, but today they were quite loud.”

“Her mourning is over,” Danny said, turning back to his mother. “Perhaps now is the time to—“

“No,” Rachel cut him off shortly. “She’s not ready.”

Miles rubbed his face with his hands, “I hate it when you two talk in riddles. I might as well be with Bass and Charlie.”

“How much longer, mother?” Danny pressed, ignoring Miles. 

“You are still here,” Rachel said pointedly. 

Danny glared at her for a moment, then dropped his shoulders, deflated. “She is right to hate you, to avoid this place,” an uncharacteristic venom coloring his voice. 

“Danny--” Miles started, then stopped. “Ah fuck. What do you want, kid? She fell in love, they died, she mourned, every Fae learns not to fall for humans in their own way.”

“She didn’t fall,” Danny muttered under his breath. 

“So she learned the difference between falling and _being_ ,” Rachel said, waving her hands in a dismissive way. “So she still loved and it is the same lesson.”

Except that everyone in that room knew that Charlie was going to make all the difference in the world, in all the worlds, her ability to love was going to change everything. 

Except that he was the only one in the room that knew they were all forestalling the inevitable day when he would fall and it would make no difference to anyone at all; because his sister will have already mourned the life of a brother and his mother will have already mourned the loss of a beloved child and his father will have already been mourned. 

Danny frowned at the floor, “I’ll be with aunt Priscilla if you need me. I’m tired of being your messenger.” He raised his head and pointed at Miles, “If you want your daughter back, you’ll have to go into the Shadow Lands and fetch her yourself.”

And then he was gone, with a vicious clap of energy.

Miles blinked over at Rachel, amused, “He’s getting spunky as he gets older, isn’t he?”

Rachel picked her way carefully across the room, stopping only when she came within arm’s reach of her paramour, forcing him to close the back, to pull her close to him. It was always like this: Rachel standing an arm’s length away, waiting for Miles to reach out and make the choice for her. He wondered in the back of his mind often enough to drive himself mad if she did this with his brother as well, standing before Ben naked and wanting, but waiting for him to take her hand, bring her close, whisper in her ear _please, please, please_.

“He’s wrong,” she said with a sigh, sinking into his arms, laying her forehead against his shoulder. “He’s so terribly mistaken and it will change everything in ways he cannot see.”

Miles looked down at his hands, brown and rough in stark contrast to her pale, smooth skin. “Are _you_ ever wrong?” he mused, sliding his thumbs along the dip in her waist.

“Never about my children,” Rachel smiled bitterly. “Although it is important for them to think that I am wrong quite often. Helps build character.”

“Would it make a difference? If you were just honest with them?”

Rachel wrenched herself out of his embrace. Always the last one to submit, always the first one to pull away, maybe that is what it meant to be Queen. She wrapped her arms around herself and walked to the window, looking out at the bright sky, the storm clouds already dissipated, “Honesty is a luxury that I am not willing to pay the price for.”

Unbidden, her sister’s voice came to her mind, from either memory or the Between, _You have asked all the wrong questions and I have given you all the answers despite your foolishness._ What could she tell them with the answers that she had buried in her breast? That she knew their end but not their beginning; that she knew the answers but not the questions; that she knew their importance but not their lives? That in the Between, with their Fates in her hands, she asked only what they could do for her and not what she could do for them, and now was left treading in the blackest water, with no hope of relief or rescue?

Her sister had Knowledge and she had Power and it was the choice of those gifts that defined them, that defined what they lost with every breath. 

She was who she had chosen to be, and no amount of transparency was going to change her or make up for the mistakes that she had made. 

“It _could_ , if you were at least honest with me,” Miles muttered under his breath. 

Rachel kept her eyes fixed on the blue sky outside her window, listening to Miles sigh and slump back on the bed. She closed her eyes and took a long, shuddering breath; in a moment, she could feel a tear trickling down the side of her face. 

In the Before, when the world was just beginning, when the boundaries between the realms was thin and the whole Universe felt like their plaything, when they were all just children it had been easier. She listened to the steady rise and fall of Miles’ breath behind her, to the thudding of her own heart in her chest, lost in the memory of those early days, tied only to this moment by their bodies thrumming in a rhythm only she could feel. They had been so young, so foolish, so foolhardy. 

They hadn’t known the pain that love could bring, how the brightest smile could foretell extreme pain. 

Her pride in her children had always been her greatest downfall. 

They said it was her love, but she knew better. It was one of the few things that she understood. 

In the Before, she had loved a child of Man, clung to him and coveted him as if he were her very own, doted upon him like a pet. He was the brightest and the simplest, the kindest, the gentlest. He was the best in all things because she needed something to believe in, still. In the Before, he had been a child and she had loved him. Now, so long after, she saw that he had been just a child – nothing more or less than any child; but because _she_ had loved him, she had believed him to be so much more than that. 

Perhaps it was punishment for her own Pride, perhaps it was the way that history would have transpired regardless of her foolish heart; but in the end, she still held his broken, bleeding body in her arms, she still felt his heartbeat fade away. 

The first death, the first sacrifice to humanity, to mortality, to the bonds and aggression of brotherhood. The first loss in the face of so much hope and promise. A reminder of everything they had to gain and everything they would have to lose. 

Rachel tightened her arms, holding her body upright as she shook with grief from the memory, so ancient and yet so fresh. 

As she held her beloved’s body in her arms, knowing for the first time what true pain was, they were given a choice. 

Priscilla chose Knowledge; in the face of pain and heartbreak, she sought out the armor of facts and unchanging truths. As tears ran down her face in anguish for the first time, she sought the safety in _knowing_. Rachel chose Power; in the face of loss and despair, she sought out the protection of control and authority over her surroundings. As the life she held in her arms slipped away, she sought the security of _power_. 

In the end, Priscilla only felt things more deeply than others, stuck in the Between - a witness and keeper of suffering and triumphs, but never the participator; while Rachel felt the limits of her own absolute power growing more and more distinct with every passing day. There were limits to even the most marvelous of gifts. Priscilla knew all, but it didn’t stop her from feeling loss just as keenly as anyone else. Rachel would never feel powerless, but that power had no influence over others, and she was forced to watch her children grow outside of her own reach. In seeking to protect herself, Priscilla had ensured she would never know a day of personal peace, in seeking to protect her children, Rachel had ensured a lifetime of fighting for the right to do so.

In that moment, everything changed, and yet they daily kept losing everything they had set out to never lose again. 

Rachel heard Miles shift behind her and her thoughts drifted to Charlie, lost in Shadow, and to her daughter’s father. 

She had once told Miles that he was the bravest man she had ever known. 

In the last breath of the first boy lost, there had been four choices and four immortals to choose a banner to raise. Priscilla had rushed to protect her own heart, Rachel had leapt at the chance to protect everyone around her, Ben had grabbed hold of a morality that needed a champion, needed a king, needed a figurehead upon which the burgeoning world could rely on. 

Miles had reached out, took the hand of the lost Shadow, departing the first body upon the ground, and led it to peace and safety. Miles had turned his back on his siblings, wrapped his arm around the boy who committed the first wrong, and walked with him a ways, step in step, the first shadow to the first killer. 

He was the one among them that understood how important each piece of the puzzle was for the whole picture to emerge, how necessary even the darkest things were for the light to survive. 

Rachel had told him once that he was the bravest man she’d ever met. 

“There were four choices that day and four people to pick them up,” he had scoffed, eyebrows raised. “I wasn’t brave, I just was the last one to choose.”

She never asked him if he would choose differently if he could go back and have first choice. She knew the answer, even if he didn’t. She saw it in every decision he made, in the way their daughter grew and evolved under their very eyes. 

He never asked her if she would choose differently if she could go back and do it all again, and she was glad – she didn’t have an answer. She thought of her sister, far away in the Between, safe and yet always broken; she thought of herself, full of power but still so weak; she thought of her husband, so Right but never right. 

Rachel liked to forget that in the aftermath of her beloved’s death, a child that she coveted for her own, she had sought vengeance upon all humankind, killing and devouring for Seasons without mercy. Power had many sides and though now she hid behind her throne and her crown and her Court, there was a time when she placed all her might into her strong hands. She liked to pretend it was less than it was, that her grief didn’t shape human history, that her Power didn’t control her mind. 

She liked to pretend that she had learned her lesson and that her choice didn’t still affect her every decision, still didn’t hang over her head like a beacon. 

There had been four roles and four hands to take up the challenges, but things were shifting, and only Priscilla knew for sure how far back the shift had occurred and to what end. Rachel narrowed her eyes at the clouds in the distance, shifting from dark grey to puffy white, and thought of the pitter-patter of her son’s delighted heart at the sound of his sister’s laughter and smiled. 

Yes, things were shifting. 

She turned back to Miles and slipped into bed beside him, letting him cradle her close, his arms pulling her tight to his chest. They all had their roles to play and that is how it had always been. 

 

 

Charlie lifted her gaze to the blue sky above and wondered about the Chosen One, dead in a world that needed him to die, and felt something stir through the air, a personal grief, a lover’s grief. It came light-footed on the backs of Shadows, clinging to Fae even as the realm sought to reject it, a piece of Shadow too small to be of consequence, calling out in pain and self-loathing for someone to comfort it. 

Charlie followed the sound. 

The little shard of a Shadow lead her, keening and wailing softly, deeper and deeper into the Shadow Lands, the other creatures there urging her along, following in her wake, as curious and determined as her to find the source of the sound. 

In a small clearing, a small grey Shadow perched on a rock, surrounded by Shadows and darkness, crying into her hands. She was smaller than a woman should be, just the barest slip of a thing that Charlie could have plucked out of the air and carried around in her palm. Charlie approached the Shadow carefully, clearing a path and shooing the others away until the small clearing was lit by a tiny bit of light filtered through the thick canopy above. 

Charlie knelt down in front of the Shadow and cleared her throat, “Um? I’m sorry but … how did something so small as you get so lost?”

The slip of Shadow wiped silver tears off her face and peered up at Charlie silently. 

Charlie shifted a little closer, “Hey, come on?” 

The little female form stepped into air between them and gestured her closer, Charlie leaned in and felt the cold air of mourning wash over her, stronger than anything she had experienced in the Shadow Lands. Charlie closed her eyes against the sensation, the chill, and felt the Shadow wrap itself around her outstretched hand, pulling her through and towards something hot and dry, something like sand and wind, something like… 

Charlie wrenched her eyes open and blinked against the sudden onslaught of light. 

A whisper tugged at her, wind whipping her hair around her head, she was no longer in Fae, she could feel the Earth weighing down her bones, everything was sand and more sand, stretched out as far as her eyes could see. 

_Please, please, please._

Charlie tried to take stock of her surroundings, it felt like coming home but someone had gone into your room while you were gone and moved around all the furnishings, everything was the same but everything was out of place, nothing felt right. She was standing on a cliff overlooking a desert wasteland, the bright sun reflecting off the light sand fragmenting her ability to make out her exact location. 

_He will not. He will not. He will not._

Charlie shook her head, trying to distance herself from the Shadow, peering out into the distance to find… an answer. 

_He will not forgive himself._

She sighed, “I’m not…”

_He loved. He loved. He loved.  
I loved. I loved. I loved._

Her stomach churned, Seasons of regret and pain dredging themselves up like a sickness. 

_Forgive. Forgive. Forgive._

Charlie felt the echo of the Shadow fade away on the wind and reached out to grab it, to chase it back to its home, to find the woman that belonged to the Shadow that had dragged her out of her home and back into the last place in all the realms she wanted to be; she lunged after the voice, spinning on her heels, and saw instead an ashen-faced man staring at her with misgiving and trepidation. 

He rushed towards her, long dirty hair falling in thin strands, thick beard covering half of his face, “ _malak_ *?”

She lurched back as he grabbed her hands, falling to his knees at her feet, “I have done what He asked?!” He peered up at her, dark eyes sinking into his long face, “You are malach? You can tell me!”

Charlie shook her head, took another step back, but couldn’t free her hands from his grasp without harming him. 

The frantic, raw hope that had burned bright in his dark eyes faded in an instant, “El didn’t send a messenger…” He stood up and backed away, his hands held up. “Of course not,” he mumbled to himself. 

Charlie held out her hand to the wind, but it was not her brother’s North Wind, it swirled around her hand without acknowledgement. Something was wrong. 

“What do you want from me _shedim_?”

Charlie raised her eyebrow, “What?”

“ _shedim_ ,” he spat into the sand at her feet. “Will you tempt me?” He laughed, a hollow aching sound and then walked to the edge of the cliff, cupping his hands around his mouth, shouting out at the sand dunes, at the setting sun, “As if I haven’t suffered enough for your love!”

Charlie reached out to the wind again, but again it did not know her. 

“Who did you love?”

The man shot her a sidewise glance, “Isn’t that why you are here?”

Charlie shrugged. She wasn’t what he thought she was, whatever it was that he thought she was – frankly she didn’t care. They stared at each other for a moment. 

“You are not _malak_?”

She rolled her eyes slightly. 

“You are not _shedim_ ,” he sounded slightly amused now. 

She let her gaze travel over his lean frame, his dirty clothes, his ragged fingernails, his untrimmed beard and hair, fixing on his dark eyes. 

“You appeared out of the air,” he snapped his fingers in front of his face in demonstration, “and you have two shadows, but you _aren’t_ \--“

Charlie cut him off with a wave of her hand, turning to her shadow and… there were two. She reached her hand out to the second, the one she knew wasn’t hers. It shook its head at her but didn’t budge. 

“Mary,” she said, turning back to him. “You want to know who sent me? Mary.” She pointed at the Shadow and sighed. 

The man’s eyes filled with tears, “She’s… dead?”

Charlie snorted, “No. She’s just a pain in my ass.”

_Please. Please. Please._

“So then, she only lost her heart to Yeshua,” he looked down at the Shadow. “And her _nefesh_.”

Charlie pointed to him, “Unless _you_ are Yeshua, I’m going to assume that she didn’t _lose_ anything.” She sighed and stalked closer to the edge of the cliff, either he was going to follow her or not, but she didn’t really care, the Shadow was back in the human realm and now she was going home. She considered the drop, it wouldn’t kill her regardless, but if the Wind didn’t catch her, she could be injured if she flung herself off the side of the cliff. She was hoping that the Wind would pick her up, stop her from falling, it had never allowed her to fall before. A crease appeared in her forehead as she looked down. 

She reached out her hands and felt the wind, it whipped around her as if it didn’t know her, as if they hadn’t been playmates her whole life. Something was _wrong_.

“Um… _ishah_?”

“Charlie,” she shot over her shoulder. 

“What?”

She closed her eyes in annoyance, “My name is Charlie. What do you want?”

“You should… look?”

Charlie turned. 

The Shadow that had brought her to the human realm, dragging her along as it was pulled back to its body, had clasped hands with her own – no longer pretending to be a false extension of her self – and had also stretched to take the man’s shadow in hand. They were linked, the three of them, the irony not escaping her notice. Her, tied to Mary, tied to the man with the long nose and in desperate need of a bath. 

Of course. 

Why not?

“Walk away,” Charlie hedged, watching their linked shadows with narrowed eyes. 

The man backed up slowly, wincing a little more with each step. 

“Does it hurt?”

He looked up at her, “No.”

She glared at him. 

Their shadows stretched in the soft rays of the setting sun, moving faster with every minute that passed, every shadow around them lengthening and deepening. The man disappeared behind and outcropping of rocks for a few minutes and Charlie stood still, silent, waiting. When he reappeared, he seemed a bit winded and walking quickly. 

“Nothing happened,” he spat out. “I ran,” he gestured, “it was still there.”

Charlie looked down at the three interwoven shadows on the ground, just barely distinguishable in the twilight and smirked silently. She turned back to the man, “Who are you?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

_Wants to die. Wants to die. Wants to die._

“It might,” Charlie looked over the edge of the cliff again and thought about jumping. Would the Wind take her home? Probably couldn’t even if it was still here, her shadow tied up in a game like this. Something was wrong. 

“It doesn’t,” he turned away, walking steadily down the hillside. 

Charlie waited a moment and then followed. 

_Judas. Judas. Judas._

“You could be more specific,” she hissed at the Shadow, the echo of a woman with a broken heart so loud it thrummed in Charlie’s ear, her blood beating against her skin in sympathy and yearning. 

_The Betrayer. The Betrayer. The Betrayer._

Charlie snorted. 

Judas looked back at her with raised eyebrows, but said nothing. 

They walked in companionable silence, Mary’s Shadow rustling in her ear, the strange wind that was not her Wind whipping through her hair and tugging at his clothes, the sand biting at them, until they reached a meager tent in a small patch of green, a spring bubbling up nearby. Charlie tried not to notice the way Mary’s Shadow was emitting a strong sense of smug satisfaction and instead settled down on a mat outside the tent with a sigh. She felt as though she had just finished running a thousand miles barefoot through a bog while carrying Danny on her back. 

Judas kicked at the mat she was sitting on, “And you still say El _didn’t_ send you?”

Charlie looked around, leaned back on her elbows, and smiled up at him, “What’s for dinner?”

He stared at her a moment. 

She held his gaze for a while and then flicked her eyes back to the setting sun. There was now only a small bright sliver hovering over the edge of the sand that surrounded them; she wondered if the heat of the day would dissipate at all in the night. The air around her seemed to grow thicker and heavier with every dip of the sun instead of cooler. Perhaps it was only the heat of the day settling into place, yet the wind still whipped around her. She would say the wind was acting like a young puppy, but this wind – this wind that was somehow not her Wind though she had never been in a realm that did not have her Wind – was neither happy nor playful nor bitter, it was simply wind. She lifted one hand, leaning more heavily on her other elbow, and dragged her hand through the air, twisting her fingers through the soft breeze, seeking purchase. 

“What are you doing?” Judas asked, looking down at her, not having moved from her side since she sat down. 

“What are _you_ doing?” Charlie rejoined, annoyed. She was hungry and tired and this wind was uncooperative in a way that she did not understand. 

He bowed his head closer to her, “This is your tent, _shedim_.”

Charlie lowered her hand and blinked up at him, glancing around with wide eyes. She _definitely_ would have remembered if she had brought a tent with her. She looked down at the Shadow, which was silent for the first time since they arrived, and back up at Judas. 

“You two just going to stare at each other all night or are you communicating somehow through…” the voice came from behind him, but the man stopped talking when Charlie sat up and turned her head in his direction. He took a step back, confused, “You… aren’t Rachel.”

Charlie looked from the man, to Judas, down at herself, and back, her eyebrows narrowing slightly, “No. Not Rachel.”

The man stiffened, “Did Rachel send you?”

_Send. Send. Send._

She had never before been mistaken for one of her mother’s goons, and it suddenly occurred to her this might be a good time to start trying to unravel what the hell Rachel was up to. On the other hand, she couldn’t care less _what_ Rachel was up to, so there was also that. Charlie smiled over at the man, “And if I am?”

He relaxed, “You aren’t. But you are… _like_ her.” The man walked closer, setting down a bag inside the entrance of the tent and then walking over to fill up a bucket of water from the spring. “I haven’t seen any of you around in a long while.” He nodded to Judas, “Sorry, brother.”

“I am not your brother,” Judas said stiffly. 

The man’s eyes danced with humor, flicking between their faces and then looking down at their entwined shadows. Something in his face twisted. “Rather cruel, that,” he jerked his chin at Mary’s Shadow. “What did she do?”

“Dragged me here,” Charlie grumbled, shooting the Shadow a dirty look. 

The man stopped in the process of filling his palms with water from the bucket and broke into laughter, large shouts that echoed against the rocks that enclosed the space they were in. After a few moments, he dipped his hands back into the water, splashed his face a few times and then grinned up at them, edges of his wild hair dripping onto his shoulders. 

“What’s so funny?” Judas ground out. Charlie got the sense that he had been looking forward to continuing his path of self-flagellation in the desert on his own terms and without any company, despite the eagerness with which he had greeted her. A messenger from his El wouldn’t be denied, but it also wasn’t expected, wasn’t wanted. He expected to succumb to his grief, alone in the desert, with no one to see and no one to mourn. 

The man shook his wet hands to dry them as he walked closer to them, crouching down just in front of the Shadow, “Why would a Shadow come to Rachel’s daughter?” He quirked his eyebrow at Charlie’s shocked expression, “You look just like her, you know.”

“You aren’t a Land Locked,” Charlie mused. 

He pursed his lips, reached his hand towards the Shadow, beckoning to it gently, “No. I’m not like you.” Mary’s Shadow reached curiously towards his hand and when they made contact he lurched away and she wailed. 

_Cursed. Cursed. Cursed._

“She’s _alive_!?” he spat out a mouthful of saliva onto the ground on his feet and backed away from them, face red with anger. 

Charlie frowned at the slip of Shadow, “It’s only a piece; it got lost in the Shadow Lands and brought me to him.” She jerked her head at Judas, annoyed. 

“What was Rachel’s daughter doing in the Sha—“ the man stopped and shrugged. “None of my business!” he pointed at Charlie with a sharp look, “ _None_. Of my business. I didn’t ask.”

“You… didn’t ask?” she repeated dubiously. 

He nodded, “I don’t care.” He flung his arms out and that’s when she saw it.

He had no shadow. 

Judas shifted slightly next to her. 

The man smirked at them, then fixed his eyes on Charlie’s face, “Who am I?”

“Is this a trick question?” Charlie tried to keep the harsh edge out of her voice, but lost the battle about three seconds before the words were out of her mouth. And then found that she didn’t care. 

He turned his attention to starting a fire in a blackened pit nearby, “So kid, Rachel is your mom and you hang out in the Shadow Lands so much a Shadow can bond to yours and you have no idea who I am? Seems like maybe your family has a communication problem.”

Charlie snorted, “If you actually know my mom, you’d already know that.” She paused. 

“And I’d know that you aren’t exactly a kid?” he raised his head to glance at her for a moment before turning back to his task. “Last time I saw your mom, you weren’t even a _thought_ yet so I’d say I’m one of… very few people wandering around this desert that can still call you kid.” He stood up, admiring his handiwork as a fire blazed and crackled at his feet, arms crossed over his chest. “Actually no,” he tilted his head to the side, still looking down at the flames. “There’s just me.”

“So who are you?” Charlie hedged. He glared at her through the smoke. “Fine. I’ll just ask my mom.”

“Why don’t you have a shadow?” Judas bit out. When they both looked over at him, startled, he huffed a little and widened his eyes back at them.

“My brother died,” the man said. “My Shadow accompanied his and left me behind.” He left the circle of light around the fire and returned with a hunk of meat on a stick that he held over the flames, squatting in front of the fire, heels flat on the ground. 

“That’s not possible,” she said after a few minutes, mulling it over in her mind. 

The man pointed at the Shadow that had decided to give her so much trouble, but didn’t say anything. Apparently there were a lot of things about Shadows that she didn’t understand. 

The memory of Hephaestion’s Shadow slipping out of his body flooded over her, shook her to the core. The instinct to force it back into his body, to reunite him with his own Self once again had taken every bit of resolve in her to resist. It still clung to her skin, that feeling that all was off-kilter in the world, that if she just reached out, she could fix it. 

If Alexander could have given his Shadow in that exact moment, saved Hephaestion the pain of waiting and watching, would he have?

Would she?

“ _Achiv_ ,” Judas said slowly, rolling the word around on his tongue. “The Cursed One.”

The man nodded solemnly, “And you, the Betrayer.”

The Shadow laughed in Charlie’s ear. 

“This spring and tent were not here when I came this way earlier today, _Achiv_ ,” Judas pressed. 

Achiv laughed quietly, “Your El has never been a friend of mine, brother.”

Judas spit. “You are no _ach_ to me.”

“No?” Achiv stood up suddenly and handed the stick in his hand to Charlie. “After what you have done, what sort of brotherhood did you expect to have?”

“None,” Judas said softly, defeat and acceptance evident in every muscle of his body. 

“Oh I see what you are saying. _You_ are selfless and acted out of love while I _am_ a terrible person? Surely not your brother, surely not someone who would understand your loss.”

Judas sneered, “I know what you are. _Ratsach_.”

_Betrayer. Betrayer. Betrayer._

“You don’t want to know what I know about you, boy,” Achiv hissed. 

Judas held his ground silently. 

Achiv exhaled, “You are the one that came tromping through my home with the Lord of Shadow’s daughter on your heels.”

“Niece,” Charlie interrupted blandly, still mostly lost to her own thoughts and memories as they argued over her head. 

Achiv gritted his teeth, “I. Didn’t. Ask.”

“You presumed.”

“ _You_ came here with a Shadow that you shouldn’t have,” he countered snappishly. She looked up at him, unamused. Achiv took a deep breath and then closed his eyes, “I’m leaving.” He opened his eyes and pointed at her, “This is on you, kid.”

“What?” Charlie blinked. 

Achiv shrugged, “All of it. Whatever this is, it’s none of my business.”

“You say that a lot.”

“I’ve been around a long time. People like to pull me into shit I don’t want to be a part of.” He glanced over his shoulder, “Especially your… uncle?”

“Miles?”

Achiv nodded. 

“He does that,” Charlie admitted. 

He bowed to her deeply, “Princess.” He straightened and smiled, “I hope we meet again under better circumstances.” 

She watched him disappear into the darkness and felt a lurch at his loss. Judas took the stick out of her hands and took up Achiv’s place next to the fire, rolling the stick in his fingers slowly. Charlie stared into the fire for a while before going into the tent and curling herself up on a pile of something soft and falling asleep. 

 

Over the next few weeks, Charlie and Judas lived in relative silence – much to the consternation of their Shadow companion, who grew rather sulky. They slaughtered and ate the goats Achiv had left behind sparingly, Judas tended to the small garden, while Charlie spent the cool early mornings trekking through the sands with her crossbow strapped to her back, bringing back fowl when she could and her own heavy silence when she could not. 

A small pack of grey wolves hunting rodents picked up on Charlie’s scent and made their new home in an outcropping of rocks within a short distance of their small oasis. Only the smallest pup dared approach her; becoming quite a bit of a nuisance in refusing to leave her side at any moment. This interference seemed at first to annoy Judas, but Charlie found him slipping her scraps of meat when she wasn’t looking. And though she hadn’t yet named the creature, she had heard him call to the pup _Cloud_ in a way that almost suggested affection. 

It felt much like being alone with Hektor in the Shadow Lands, only with much different weather and scenery. Within a few days, she had fallen into much the same rhythm she had been living in there, which consisted primarily of staring moodily off into the distance and occasionally eating and sleeping. Mary’s Shadow whispered at her from time to time, urging her to speak to Judas but as he seemed to be consistently staring moodily off into the distance while muttering to himself when not encouraging her to eat and sleep, Charlie figured he was in better shape than she was. 

What could she offer him other than companionable silence?

 _Hope. Hope. Hope._

Charlie looked down at the Shadow and shook her head; it wasn’t her place to give out hope like it was a trinket that solved anything or perform grand speeches about tomorrow. What did she know about tomorrow? The sun kept rising and setting and the moon kept on counting the nights, but the ache in her chest didn’t heal and she no longer knew if she was mourning for her brothers – found and loved and cherished despite the odds – or for the person that she had been before Troy or for Helen, if she was even still mourning at all. 

Maybe this is what grief had twisted her into in finality. 

Sometimes their eyes would meet across the top of the fire at night, their faces lit orange in the strange glow, and there would be such deep understanding in his gaze that she felt… content. Perhaps for the first time in a long time. And if he didn’t feel the same way, there was no indication so she stayed and he stayed. 

One night, without saying a word, Judas sunk down beside Charlie after she had washed her hair and brushed it out slowly with a comb she had carved, then braided it intricately in many strands that he weaved together. The braids kept her hair out of her face and prevented it from being tangled by the harsh wind that never eased or dissipated. His rough hands were gentle in her hair and when he came close, she noted that he smelled of rich oils. 

In time, they slowly became more easy in the other’s presence, stopped shying away from the other when bathing or sleeping. It was comfort or family – or what passed for it when you lived on the edge of the world with sand and wind all around you and no reason to ever go back. 

Meanwhile, the Shadow whispered to Charlie daily. 

_Help him. Help him. Help him._

As if she could. 

As if she wanted to. 

 

In his dreams, the darkness is punctuated with the sound of sobbing. He woke up to darkness and the sound of sobbing and for once it is not his own. He watches her cry in her sleep and cannot reach out or move, but he wonders if she’d kill him if he asked her to. He falls asleep with silent tears trickling from the corners of his eyes and the sound of her unspoken grief resounding in his ear. 

 

“Does it hurt her?” he asked once, pointing at the Shadow. 

Charlie chewed slowly, not looking. “I don’t know.”

_Help. Help. Help._

She scowled and kicked some sand in the Shadow’s direction, “If it did, she should just leave.”

Judas nodded silently and turned back to the flames. 

 

In her dreams, Hephaestion danced with Helen in her mother’s ballroom while she laughed into the shoulder of a Shadow. She woke up with tears drying on her face. In the dim moonlight, Judas sat up and looked over at her silently, an unspoken question in the air. She woke up in the morning with his chest pressed against her back and his arms wrapped solidly around her, salty tracks still etched down her face. 

 

“Aren’t you going to ask?”

Charlie scratched Cloud’s ear and didn’t respond or look over. 

“Don’t you want to know?”

She sighed, “No. But you want to tell me.”

He looked at her balefully; his dark eyes haunted from the weight of what he didn’t want her to ask. 

“Why do they call you the Betrayer?”

Judas looked down at his hands, “Because I loved my best friend and I did what he asked.”

_Him. Him. Him._

“And he died?”

_Killed him. Killed him. Killed him._

Charlie cleared her throat, “And you killed him?”

“I did what he asked. And he died. Because I said yes.”

 

In her dreams, Hephaestion’s Shadow climbs out of his body and opens her mouth with his long hands, prying her jaw open roughly and sliding inside, moving her limbs like his own, they kiss Alexander and she doesn’t cry, but he does; they fight and swim in blood, she looks down and sees Helen at their feet and she doesn’t cry, but he does and the tears he sheds sting her face. She wakes up with Judas pressed against her back and Cloud curled up against her stomach. 

 

“Aren’t you going to tell me?” he sat down next to her and bumped her shoulder with hers. Maybe they were at that stage now. 

“Tell you what?” she took the fig out of his hand and popped it into her mouth without thinking about it. 

“Why she brought _you_?”

_Why you cry. Why you dream. Why you stay._

Charlie shrugged, “Because someone I loved died.”

He nodded. 

“I didn’t kill him… them,” she said defensively. 

“But you have killed before.”

She felt like she should thank him for not posing that as a question. 

“Guess it doesn’t matter,” he said slowly. 

_Doesn’t it. Doesn’t it. Doesn’t it._

“Guess not.”

 

In his dreams, Yeshua smiled at him and held out his arms to embrace him, but he was stuck in a bog, his feet held fast with black mud that rose up, up, up his body until he couldn’t move or see or scream out. He woke up to her back pressed against his chest and her scent thick in the air. 

 

“Why won’t you _leave_?!”

He returned from a walk in the desert to the sound of her screaming, railing at the Shadow. He caught her arms in his hands and pulled her against him, soothing her with words she didn’t understand or hear. 

_Why you cry. Why you dream. Why you stay._

Charlie burst into tears, pounding her fists against his chest, screaming into the night air. He held her as tight as she could, took the beating as if it were for him and not for a world that was cruel and destroyed everything they held onto. 

Took it as if he understood that her love was destructive as the oceans beating upon the shore.   
Took it as if she understood that his love was destructive as a river cutting a canyon through a valley. 

They stood there, her crying, him silent, as the sun dipped below the horizon and the wind blew around their bodies. 

 

In his dreams, he kisses Yeshua on the cheek, on the lips, on the throat, in the dip of his clavicle, and His hands are in his hair, and he begs to be beaten and ignored but His hands only caress his skin and when he opens his eyes, Yeshua is dead and he is still in an oasis with a woman with grief as silencing and heavy as his own. 

When he leaves the tent, there are two shadows where there once were three and there is a figure walking towards them on the horizon. 

 

Charlie folds her arms over her chest, “And I’m just supposed to… believe you?”

The newcomer smiled up at her with a mouthful of stolen mean wedged into his cheek, “Believe what you want.”

Judas came close behind her right shoulder, but didn’t say anything. He was a man of few words, even when someone unknown intruded upon their private space. Private… stolen space. But this man was definitely not Achiv and therefore an intruder. 

Charlie narrowed her eyes at the man helping himself to their breakfast, which she had taken the time that morning to hunt down and prepare, despite her general malaise and disinterest in food – the preparing or the eating of. 

“Did Mary send you?” 

Behind her, Judas shifted. Charlie shot a glance at their shadows on the ground, clearly defined in the mid-morning light. Just the two of them. She had noticed it on her hunt that morning. Mary was gone. Hopefully back to her body and the rest of her Shadow and not gathering up more wanderers to take place in whatever the hell she thought they were doing out here in the middle of the desert. 

The man laughed, “No. _Mary_ didn’t send me. No one sent me. I’m looking for him.” He jerked his chin at Judas, who started. “Honestly surprised that you aren’t dead.”

“Who are you?” Judas asked suspiciously.

The man squinted up at them, one eye shut against the glare of the sun overhead, his hair wild about his face giving him a rather leonine appearance. He stood up, wiping his hands off on his clothes, “I have a lot of names.”

“We just need one,” Charlie didn’t try hiding the annoyance she felt. 

“Morningstar.” He bowed to her, “Charlotte, it _is_ a pleasure of course.”

“Am I supposed to know you?” she probably should have spent the last several months unpuzzling who Achiv was and what he meant to her mother and Miles, but she had never liked getting involved in Court affairs. She really didn’t want this newcomer to be another _someone_ she should know. 

“He should,” Morningstar nodded to Judas. 

“You knew Yeshua.”

“Half the world claims to know Yeshua,” Morningstar coughed slightly as if covering up a laugh. “But I did meet him once or twice.” He looked solemnly at Judas, “No one knew him like you did.”

Charlie glanced at Judas over her shoulder and saw that he was blushing. 

“I was hoping you’d come with me now,” he continued, still addressing Judas, who seemed to grow more uncomfortable with every passing moment. 

“Go with you?” Charlie wrinkled her nose. “Where?”

“Oh,” Morningstar rolled his shoulders and looked up at the sky. “Here and there.”

“And if I say no?” 

Cloud ran up to them and began whining for a piece of meat, which Morningstar threw to her without hesitation. 

“You won’t.”

“And if he does?” Charlie pressed. 

“He won’t,” Morningstar looked Charlie in the eye and didn’t break her gaze. “The Brother met me on the road a while back, I’ve waited long enough for you two to …” he shook his head. “He won’t.”

“I’m not going,” Judas said strongly and turned away. 

Morningstar plucked the stick out of Cloud’s mouth and threw it for her, his arm steady. She bounded off with a sharp bark of delight. He looked at Charlie and whispered confidentially, “He will come with me.”

The strange wind that was not her Wind whipped around them in a sudden gust. 

“And where will you go?” he smiled softly at her. “Meet Mary. Visit your brother’s grave. Conquer the New World? Where do you want to go?”

“Why do you know me?”

“Ask me that again the next time we meet,” he said gently, as if that was any answer at all. He put his arm around her shoulder as if they were old friends, “Now, go say goodbye to your mate and walk out of here.”

“Otherwise he won’t leave.”

“Otherwise we can’t leave,” he affirmed, pushing her gently. “See you soon, princess.”

 

 

Charlie hadn’t said goodbye to Judas, not in a way that anyone else would have understood. Instead, she had handed him a leather collar she had made for Cloud on her way out of the oasis, he had taken it with a nod and no word, and that was that. 

She didn’t have to walk far, her shadow pulling her back towards their companion of so many months. She found Mary in a small home on the outskirts of a large village, serving wine to two old women that she introduced as Yeshua’s mother and aunt, Mary and Elizabeth, who greeted her warmly and then disappeared, leaving Mary and Charlie to talk alone in the small one-room house. 

“How did you do… what you did?” Charlie asked slowly, sipping the wine Mary had pressed into her hands. 

The woman shrugged, “I … felt as though my soul had been torn in two and then I heard someone crying and I followed the sound and found you. Except,” she frowned and bit her lip, “I didn’t. I was also _here_. We cared for Yeshua’s body, I saw him wake up and leave again, but I also was with you and Judas.” She looked up at Charlie, who was frowning, “He is alive and safe?”

Charlie nodded, “Yes. He is with friends. I think?”

Mary smiled warmly, “And you? Are healed?”

Charlie shook her head, “I don’t understand. You came to find _me_?”

“Yes!” Mary looked taken aback. “Did you think…”

“That you were lost… or that… you Shadow had tried to die when the person you loved died… or… something?” Charlie floundered around for an explanation. 

“You were so loud,” Mary whispered, looking down into her own dark wine. “I couldn’t have been the first person to find you.”

At Charlie’s silence, Mary flung herself across the room and knelt at Charlie’s side, wrapping her arms around her. Charlie accepted the embrace and said nothing. 

“Who were you mourning?” Mary finally asked, pulling away. “What broke your heart?”

Charlie shrugged, wiping her eyes, but did not respond. A long list of faces and names flickered through her mind, men and women she had loved and killed or loved and watched die or who had loved her and paid the price for that love. 

_Myself,_ her heart thudded against her ribcage in protest. _I was mourning myself._

“What could make someone as strong as you feel so weak?” Mary reached up and brushed a strand of hair away from Charlie’s face. 

“A woman, she … killed a lot of people,” Charlie stuttered. “And when I _could_ have fixed it, I didn’t.”

Mary rocked back on her heels slightly, taking Charlie’s hands in hers, “What’s done is done.” She shrugged a little and laughed, “Maybe its human nature to want to fix the past, but no good deed now will take away the harm we did then.”

Charlie tightened her grip on Mary’s hands, “Your heart was broken, but you still tried to help me.”

Mary squeezed back, “You have to have it before you can recognize it in someone else.” She laughed, a light twinkling sound that reminded Charlie of Helen. “That’s what my mother used to say about pregnancy and the clap.”

Charlie doubled over in laughter, their foreheads touching as they giggled together. She took in a deep breath, “Your mother sounds very wise.”

Mary’s face softened, “She was.”

“I’m sorry—“ Charlie started, but Mary waved her sympathy away. 

“It was a long time ago.” She smiled up at her, “And now it’s time for you to go home.”

Over by the window, a baby started whimpering. Charlie raised her eyebrows and Mary leaned over to whisper, “Judas wasn’t the only one who loved Yeshua.” She gathered up the baby and turned back to Charlie, “I’d hoped he could be a part of her life but…” she shrugged and settled back down in her seat on the floor, tucking her legs under her the way Charlie sat and setting the infant down in the nook of one knee. “Judas has his own journey to take.”

“I’m sure he’ll come to visit,” Charlie offered. 

Mary shook her head, looking down at her child with an expression of deep love on her face, “I hope not. He should be happy wherever he is and he wouldn’t be happy here.”

Charlie imagined Judas walking through the door, Cloud at his heels, and seeing Mary curled up with a babe on her lap. “No,” she whispered and smiled at Mary. “But maybe he will be happy again someday.”

Mary reached out and clasped Charlie’s hand in hers, “Now close your eyes, and go home.”

Charlie closed her eyes and instead of calling to the Wind as she always had, she thought of the Shadows and the other creatures in her uncle’s lands and reached out to them with her heart. She opened her eyes to find Hektor crouched inches in front of her, a curious expression on her face. She looked around at the trees and Shadows that had gathered upon her returned and smiled. 

She was home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Language notes:: Judas insists on throwing certain Hebrew terms around. I tried not to botch the uses of these terms or use them in a disrespectful way but if I did unintentionally, I am sorry and please let me know.  
>  _malak_ = “angel”;   
> _shedim_ = “demon”   
> _nefesh_ = according to what I could cobble together, is the part of your soul that resides in your body; in Hebrew there are three different words for ‘soul’ and this seemed the most accurate to describe the Fae Shadow  
>  _ishah_ = woman  
>  _achiv_ = his brother; brother with no declension is “ach”  
>  _ratsach_ = murderer
> 
>  
> 
> ((also: **yes, I intend to let Morningstar return**. not sure to what extent yet, as this plotline was not planned AT ALL, but I'm sure this isn't the last of him))


End file.
